liiiiipiii'if  ?is  5*:'¥'S^- 


The  CHURCH 
AND  THE  CROWD 


Kichard 
Wallace 
Ho^e 


^fonw«cf^ 


OCT  18  1919 


S 


BV  600  .H7  1917 

Hogue,  Richard  Wallace. 

The  church  and  the  crowd 


"A 


THE  CHURCH 
AND  THE  CROWD 


THE  CHURCH  AND 
THE  CROWD 

AN  INTERPRETATION  OF  THE 
ANSWER  OF  THE  CHURCH  TO 
THE  CHALLENGE  OF  THE  DAY 


BY 
RICHARD  WALLACE  HOGUE,  D.D. 


^^  OF  punici^ 


V 


New  York        Chicago        Torokto 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 

LOKDON      AND      EdIKBURQH 


Copyright,  1917,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  17  North  Wabash  Ave. 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  Street, W. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:  100  Princes  Street 


TO 
M.  B.   H. 

AND 

B.  C.  Y.  H. 


PREFACE 

It  is  generally  recognized  that  the  "  Common  Peo 
ple  "  of  His  day  gave  an  eager  hearing  to  the  message 
of  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  generally  conceded  that  the 
"  Common  People  "  of  to-day  have  scant  respect  for 
the  message  and  no  regard  for  the  leadership  of  the 
Church.  They  do  not  look  to  organized  religion  for 
either  guidance  or  help.  Worse  than  that  —  they  do 
not  look  to  it  for  anything.  They  look  upon  it  as 
at  best  negligible  and  at  worst  hostile  to  their  funda- 
mental needs  and  rights.  Some  of  their  leaders  have 
made  out  a  strong  case  against  the  Church  as  the  sub- 
sidized apologist  for  the  privileged  class  on  whose 
support  it  depends.  They  hold  that  the  Church  is 
the  champion  of  property  rights  against  human  rights. 
This  view  is  also  shared  by  not  a  few  of  the  foremost 
intellectual  leaders  and  social  workers  of  to-day. 

Moreover,  an  ever  larger  number  of  honest-minded 
men  and  women  within  the  Church  are  seriously  ask- 
ing such  questions  as  these :  "  Has  organized  re- 
ligion not  only  forfeited  its  leadership  but  lost  the 
message  of  its  Founder?  If  so,  or  if  not,  will  the 
Church  make  good  her  mission  and  her  message  ? 
Will  the  real  redemption  of  humanity  come  through 

7 


8  Preface 

forces  and  in  channels  outside  the  organized 
Church  ?  '^ 

This  little  volume  is  an  attempt  to  help  answer 
these  questions,  an  effort  to  aid  the  Church  to  meet 
the  challenge  of  to-day  as  her  Founder  met  the  chal- 
lenge of  His  day.  His  mission  cost  Him  His  life 
and  the  Church  must  make  ready  to  lose  her  very  life 
in  fearless  and  sacrificial  service.  There  is  no  other 
way.  The  challenge  of  humanity  to  the  Church  of 
this  generation  is  marked  by  a  note  of  finality. 
There  is  no  time  for  delay,  no  excuse  for  hesitation, 
evasion  or  compromise.  The  Church  must  answer 
the  Call  of  the  Crowd.  As  a  contribution  to  that 
answer  this  volume  is  offered  by  one  whose  convic- 
tions have  been  wrought  by  experience  into  his  heart 
and  conscience  and  whose  life  is  pledged  to  the  Min- 
istry of  the  Church  and  the  service  of  the  "  Common 
People." 

Baltimore,  Md.  H.  W.  H. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

11 


I.     The  Challeitge 


11.     The  Commonwealth  and  the  Common 
Crowd 

III.  The  Call  to  Ee-Inteepret  . 

IV.  The  Call  to  Readjustment 

V.  Is  THE  Church  Afraid? 

VI.  The  Call  to  the  Ministry  . 


22 
34 
44 
57 
70 


THE  CHALLENGE 

THE  morning  mail  brought  two  letters  to  the 
Rectory  which  were  seemingly  as  unrelated 
as  the  two  writers.  Each  writer  was  un- 
known to  the  other  and  they  were  in  entirely  separate 
spheres  of  life-work.  The  first  letter  was  from  a 
young  clergyman  successfully  engaged  in  a  work  the 
interest  and  importance  of  which  had  been  recognized 
by  the  secular  press  as  well  as  by  the  Church  papers. 
His  letter  was  an  earnest  request  for  an  introduction 
to  laymen  of  large  means  who  might  be  led  to  con- 
tribute to  the  support  of  a  splendid  humanitarian 
and  religious  institutional  work  under  the  auspices 
of  the  Church.  The  other  letter  was  from  a  man  of 
note  in  the  world  of  scholarship,  whom  sickness  had 
brought  to  the  border  of  death  and  to  whom  the 
deeper  issues  of  life  had  an  ever  deepening  meaning. 
His  motive  and  spirit  in  writing  were  those  of  a 
friend  and  not  a  critic.  He  writes  out  of  seasoned 
convictions,  in  a  sympathetic  spirit  and  with  a  de- 
sire to  help  rather  than  hinder  the  influence  and 
work  of  the  Church.  Speaking  of  a  remarkable  re- 
cent book,  he  says :     "  There  is  a  fresh  way  of  put- 

11 


12  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

ting  the  case  for  faith  that  interests  me  after  the 
conventional  approaches  I've  had  from  Clerics  and 
others."  Again  speaking  of  the  Church's  policy: 
"It  is  too  cautious  and  correct.  It  should  discuss 
more  candidly  the  questions  men  are  really  concerned 
about  and  disagree  about ;  for  instance,  how  far  the 
Church  can  and  should  go  in  dealing  with  civic  ques- 
tions." 

Now  can  there  be  any  logical  link  between  these 
two  letters  ?  The  work  of  the  young  clergyman  is 
widely  known  and  is  located  in  a  state  the  chief 
city  of  which  is  abounding  in  wealth,  much  of  which 
is  possessed  by  laymen  of  his  church.  Why  then  is  it 
necessary  to  seek  help  from  those  of  a  far  distant 
state  ?  How  comes  it  that  literally  thousands  of  un- 
dertakings and  institutions  of  the  Church  are  con- 
stantly suffering  from  meager  support  and  peren- 
nially appealing  for  funds  while  large  numbers  of 
laymen  with  bank  accounts  running  into  millions 
pay  slight  heed  to  these  appeals?  Yet  from  num- 
bers of  these  and  other  laymen  go  forth  gifts  of 
large  sums  to  public  benefactions,  general  benevo- 
lences and  secular  institutions.  Can  it  be  true  that 
these  men  feel  as  the  writer  of  the  second  letter  feels  ? 

Is  it  a  fact  that  the  "conservative,  conventional, 
cautious  and  correct "  attitude  of  the  Church,  through 
vested  clergy  and  leading  laity,  serves  to  discount  or 
counteract  the  appeals  of  the  Church?  Is  there  a 
"  freshness  and  freedom  and  fairness  "  lacking  in 


The  Challenge  13 

the  atmosphere  created  by  the  "  Clerics ''  which 
serves  to  repel  many  of  the  very  men  whom  the 
Church  most  needs  ?  Do  they  view  this  ^'  Church 
Atmosphere  "  with  a  very  honest  feeling  that  it  is  a 
close,  confining,  stifling  atmosphere  —  not  like  that 
created  by  Him  who  said :  "  I  came  that  ye  might 
have  life  and  that  ye  might  have  it  more  abun- 
dantly ? "  Do  they  feel  that  we  are  preaching  what 
a  modem  writer  has  termed  a  "muffled  Gospel/' 
that  we  have  neither  the  training  nor  the  courage  to 
cope  with  questions  of  civic  righteousness  ?  Do  they 
find  just  reason  for  remaining  outside  the  sphere 
of  the  Church's  activities  and  influence  in  their  con- 
viction that  her  activities  are  circumscribed  and  her 
influence  is  hampered  by  her  own  self-imposed  limi- 
tations and  self-absorbed  influence?  Do  they  feel 
that  we  are  more  anxious  to  save  tradition  than  to 
serve  humanity,  to  prove  that  Christ  was  a  Church- 
man rather  than  that  the  Church  is  Christlike  ?  Do 
they  see  that  we  hold  aloof  from  large  issues  of  the 
day,  that  we  haven't  breadth  of  vision  or  a  grasp  of 
life  at  large,  that  we  are  too  "  cautious  and  correct " 
to  venture  upon  problems  about  which  men  disagree 
but  with  which  they  are  vitally  concerned  ? 

These  questions  constitute  a  challenge  to  the 
Church.  They  merit  an  honest  and  unevasive  an- 
swer. More  than  one  answer  can  be  given  and  is 
being  given;  from  the  searching  self-analysis  de- 
manded of  the  Church  by  the  author  of  "  The  Ee- 


14  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

proach  of  the  Gospel  "  to  the  splendid  interpretations 
of  the  Church  by  a  Phillips  Brooks,  a  Rausenbusch, 
a  Bishop  Spalding  and  a  Bishop  Williams. 

More  and  more  the  Church  is  recognizing  the  vital 
relation  between  a  nation's  government  and  the  physi- 
cal, moral  and  spiritual  needs  and  rights  of  that 
nation's  people.  If  it  be  our  country's  supreme 
need  and  our  God's  supreme  purpose  that  the  King- 
dom of  men  shall  become  the  Kingdom  of  God,  it 
cannot  be  unless  and  until  those  who  serve  in  the 
Kingdom  of  God  serve  also  well  and  worthily  in  the 
Kingdom  of  men.  Opportunities  for  the  Church 
to  render  her  service  in  the  world  come  for  the  most 
part  in  the  indirect  ways  of  influence,  teaching  and 
spiritual  power.  Too  often  these  are  thwarted,  di- 
verted or  defeated  by  the  injustice  of  laws  and  the 
unrighteousness  of  ruling  classes.  When  the  Min- 
istry of  the  Militant  Church  —  each  in  his  own  con- 
viction of  duty  —  resolves  to  do  battle  in  God's  and 
His  people's  name  against  the  powers  of  injustice  and 
unrighteousness,  then  and  not  till  then  will  the 
Church's  mission  and  message  be  free  to  reach,  lib- 
erate and  redeem  those  whom  she  is  commissioned  to 
serve.  Then  will  her  honest  critics  and  her  delib- 
erate foes  see  that  she  is  not  deaf  to  humanity's  great 
common  needs  nor  afraid  to  lift  her  voice  and  exert 
her  influence  in  all  practical  fields  of  service. 

Then  only  will  the  minister  have  full  recognition 
and  his  own  people  and  all  others  know  that  his  ordi- 


The  Challenge  15 

nation  does  not  set  him  apart  from  men  but  charges 
and  consecrates  him  to  do  his  part  by  men,  that  while 
he  is  not  above  helping  the  humblest  he  can  not  con- 
sent to  be  below  leading  the  strongest ;  that  he  has  a 
duty  which  no  other  duty  can  destroy  and  a  right 
which  no  other  man  shall  deny  to  "  render  unto 
Csesar  the  things  that  are  Cesar's,''  by  his  money,  his 
voice,  his  vote  and  his  espousal  of  every  cause  that 
cries  for  justice  and  every  movement  that  makes  for 
righteousness  in  every  field  of  human  endeavor. 

From  the  black-bound  cover  of  the  Book  of  old  to 
the  living  conscience  of  the  Church  to-day  comes  the 
call  of  God^s  prophet :  "  Spare  not ;  Lengthen  thy 
cords  and  strengthen  thy  stakes.  For  thou  shalt 
spread  abroad  on  the  right  hand  and  on  the  left." 
Let  us  recall  to  whom  these  words  were  addressed. 
It  was  to  a  kingdom  insecure  of  sufficient  support. 
It  was  to  a  people  whose  leadership  was  unaccept- 
able and  whose  power  was  unrecognized  by  the  world 
outside.  Beneath  the  apparent  futility  of  such  a 
promise  to  such  a  people  rests  an  eternal  principle. 
To  those  beset  by  baffling  problems  and  struggling 
beneath  heavy  burdens  there  is  but  one  way  to  light 
and  life  and  victory.  It  is  not  the  path  that  leads 
back  behind  the  ancient  walls  —  within  the  inner  cita- 
del of  self-security,  self-protection  and  self-absorp- 
tion. It  is  outward  and  onward,  into  the  field 
of  larger  vision  and  more  abundant  labors.  Thus 
will  fresh  courage  be  gained  by  the  resolution  to 


16  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

strengthen  the  hands  of  all  who  are  weak  and  new 
light  will  be  thrown  on  our  problems  bj  the  effort 
to  lighten  the  way  for  others. 

Lengthen  the  cords  of  that  truth  which  sets  men 
free  from  the  bondage  of  the  bigotry  that  in  exclud- 
ing others  isolates  and  excludes  itself.  Lengthen 
those  cords  of  love  which  extend  God's  tabernacle 
over  every  temple  where  praying  men  worship  the 
common  Father.  Lengthen  those  cords  of  service 
which  stretch  beyond  the  individual  in  his  needs  to 
society  in  its  sins,  beyond  selfish  interest  in  our  own 
affairs  to  Christlike  passion  for  "  all  men  every- 
where." Then  shalt  thou  see  clearly  the  only  just 
cause  for  strengthening  the  stakes  of  thine  own 
church.  For  of  the  Church  as  of  men  it  is  eternally 
true  that  to  lose  itself  in  sacrificing  service  is  the 
only  way  to  gain  its  place  and  find  its  power  in 
Christ  and  over  men. 

"  Go  forward !  "  was  the  command  of  Hoses  to  an 
army  standing  baffled  between  the  approaching 
enemy  and  the  impeding  waters.  "  Go  ye !  "  was 
Christ's  command  to  the  bereft  and  bewildered  men 
who  were  to  form  His  coming  Kingdom.  These  are 
supremely  the  commands  to  be  heard  and  heeded  by 
the  Church  of  to-day.  Thus  shall  we  find  our  hold 
on  truth  grow  strong  by  the  uplifting  influence  of 
the  truth  as  seen  by  other  men.  Thus  shall  we  see 
our  disturbed  or  discouraged  councils  made  calm  and 
sure  by  the  consciousness  of  seeking  first  the  welfare 


The  Challenge  17 

of  His  Kingdom  —  His  whole  Kingdom.  Thus  shall 
our  consciences  be  quickened,  our  motives  purified 
and  our  hopes  enlarged  by  the  life  that  brings  the 
liberty  of  a  larger  love  and  the  power  of  a  wider 
usefulness.  Thus  alone  shall  we  gain  power  through 
unselfish  service. 

We  can  not  pretend  to  "  honor  the  King  "  of  all 
mankind  unless  we  give  abundant  proof  that  we  "  love 
the  Brotherhood  "  of  all  men.  We  can  not  hope  to 
promote  the  principle  of  rightful  conservation  by 
the  practise  of  perpetual  conservatism.  Let  those 
who  will  accept  the  prophet's  full  message  and  so 
bring  to  pass  his  splendid  prophecy  in  this  our  day : 
"  Thou  shalt  spread  abroad  on  the  right  hand  and  on 
the  left ;  and  thy  seed  shall  possess  the  nations." 

The  burden  of  forcing  denominational  ambitions 
and  ecclesiastical  regulations  at  this  time  upon  the 
Church  is  a  serious  matter.  We  should  not  be  com- 
pelled to  bear  with  it  when  weightier  matters  are 
waiting  for  our  attention  and  unsolved  problems  of 
far  deeper  moment  are  demanding  solution.  The  in- 
ternal problems  alone  of  the  Church  are  many  and  se- 
rious. If  any  doubt  this  let  them  ask  our  busy  and 
burdened  bishops,  with  exhausted  funds  and  in- 
creasing demands,  many  of  them  compelled  to  lay 
aside  the  calling  of  chief  pastors  to  become  business 
executives.  Ask  the  rank  and  file  of  the  ministry 
and  they  will  render  a  terrible  but  true  story  of  in- 
adequate support,  crippled  work,  weak  departments. 


18  The  ChurcH  and  the  Crowd 

insufficient  equipment,  insolvent  and  unsound  foun- 
dations, delayed  progress,  life-and-death  struggle 
against  bankruptcy,  as  revealed  beneath  the  outward 
existence  of  thousands  of  parishes.  Ask  the  aged 
and  disabled  clergy  whose  pitifully  small  stipends 
are  neither  regular  nor  sufficient.  Ask  the  Mission 
Boards  and  they  tell  us  a  story  of  deficit,  of  borrow- 
ing and  begging  in  order  to  do  the  minimum  of  work 
now  done  and  of  how  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  leav- 
ing vast  fields  unoccupied  and  vast  multitudes  un- 
reached. Yet  within  the  Church's  fold,  among  her 
accepted  and  official  rulers,  rest  uncounted,  untold 
and  unconsecrated  millions.  Is  it  not  an  impelling 
and  consuming  task  to  consecrate  this  age  of  hoarded 
power,  of  vast  wealth  and  terrible  poverty?  Men 
are  demanding  from  the  Church  the  full  message  of 
her  Master's  teaching  and  life.  With  her  rests  the 
great  Spirit-born  power  that  shall  make  men  glad  to 
spend  and  be  spent  in  order  to  do  God's  will  and 
save  God's  world. 

And  what  of  those  other  vast  fields  calling  for 
righteous  readjustment  and  redeeming  service, — 
fields  ripe  for  the  harvest  while  the  laborers  spend 
their  Master's  time  in  regulating  details  and  em- 
bellishing ritual?  What  right  have  we  in  the  face 
of  conditions  which  threaten  the  very  life  of  the 
Church  and  of  humanity  to  be  thinking  of  ourselves  ? 
"  For  every  idle  word  we  shall  have  to  give  account." 
Can't  we  seem  to  hear  St.  Paul  as  he  says :     "  When 


The  Challenge  19 

I  was  a  child  I  spake  as  a  child/ ^  etc.,  "  but  when  I 
became  a  man  I  put  away  childish  things  "  ?  Can't 
we  see  the  foolishness  as  well  as  the  waste  and  the 
wrong  of  taking  up  God's  time  and  our  day  in  such 
contentions  ?  If  we  do  not  see  it,  others  do  —  great, 
true  men  and  women  who  are  claiming  that  their 
chief  inspiration  to  service  is  found  outside  the 
Church.  Men  are  demanding  to  know  which  is  the 
more  important:  to  change  our  form  of  worship  or 
the  world's  moral  condition;  to  quote  the  doctrinal 
disputes  of  a  few  ancient  "  Fathers  "  or  to  champion 
the  disputed  rights  of  multitudes  of  modern  children, 
to  bring  back  their  lost  childhood  to  millions  whose 
free  and  grateful  hearts  will  learn  to  say  again  "  Our 
Father  "  and  whose  liberated  prayers  and  lives  will 
help  to  save  the  Church  which  has  helped  to  save 
them  ?  This  land  of  ours  is  to  be  —  its  real  rulers 
and  righteous  citizens  mean  that  it  shall  be  —  in 
profound  reality  as  it  has  been  in  professed  name  — 
an  openly,  aggressively,  prevailingly  Christian  land. 
The  Christian  nation  shall  not  be  divorced  from 
the  Christian  Church.  The  day  is  coming  —  inev- 
itably coming  —  when  we  shall  no  longer  speak  of 
the  forces  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  at  work  within  the 
Eepublic  but  of  the  forces  of  the  Republic  at  work 
within  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

That  this  is  our  rightful  hope  and  that  it  should 
inspire  our  relentless  energies,  our  united  efforts  and 
our  sustaining  prayers  has  become  more  and  more 


20  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

the  established  conviction  of  the  greatest  and  worth- 
iest leaders  of  Church  and  State.  It  is  the  funda- 
mental faith  of  all  whose  hearts  are  free  from  par- 
tizanship  and  bigotry.  It  has  become  the  determined 
purpose  of  all  who  count  themselves,  their  talents 
and  possessions,  their  party  and  their  church,  as 
servants  of  their  fellowmen  and  their  God  in  the 
name  of  Him  who  said :  "  I  came  not  to  be  minis- 
tered unto  but  to  minister." 

Then  will  men  realize  our  right  and  our  mission 
to  lead  the  forces  which  are  striving  to  bring  the 
kingdom  of  men  into  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Then 
will  the  Church  be  seen  not  looking  backward  to  an- 
cient history  but  moving  forward  into  new  life. 
Then  will  we  no  longer  appear  as  a  house  divided 
against  itself,  intent  upon  family  quarrels,  but  as  a 
Kingdom  aflame  with  zeal  and  awakened  to  right- 
eousness, forcing  the  chains  of  oppression  and  forg- 
ing the  bonds  of  brotherhood,  that  all  men  every- 
where may  be  brought  into  the  Family  of  the  one 
God  and  Father  of  us  all. 

There  are  grave  dangers  ahead  for  the  Church  that 
essays  to  answer  the  challenge  of  the  world  —  the 
call  of  the  crowd  —  to-day.  There  is  the  danger  of 
losing  the  support  and  winning  the  opposition  of  lay- 
men whose  power  is  their  wealth.  There  is  the  dan- 
ger of  the  incompetent  leadership  of  the  uninformed 
and  the  unbalanced.  There  is  the  danger  of  dealing 
with  the  effects  and  not  the  causes  of  human  ills  and 


The  Challenge  21 

injustices.  There  is  the  danger  of  identifying  evils 
with  persons  rather  than  conditions,  with  individuals 
rather  than  systems.  There  is  the  danger  of  sub- 
stituting panaceas  for  principles,  of  being  side- 
tracked by  passing  reforms,  of  making  "  entangling 
alliances  "  with  programs  and  parties. 

But  all  of  these  and  other  dangers  are  as  nothing 
beside  the  danger  of  the  greatest  modem  schism,  that 
of  separating  life  into  the  sacred  and  the  secular,  the 
spiritual  and  the  material. 

"  With  politics,  so  far  as  they  have  to  do  with  the 
strife  of  parties  and  the  rivalry  of  candidates,  the 
Church  has  no  concern.  But  with  politics  —  the 
moral  aspect  of  the  life  of  the  state  —  she  must  deal 
frankly  and  fearlessly.  When  she  evades  or  neg- 
lects this  office  of  public  prophecy,  when  she  gives 
her  strength  to  theological  subtlety  and  ecclesiastical 
rivalry  and  clerical  millinery,  and  stands  silent  in 
the  presence  of  corruption  and  indifferent  to  the 
progress  of  reform,  her  own  bells  will  toll  the  death 
knell  of  her  influence -— her  sermons  will  be  the 
funeral  discourse  of  her  power,  and  her  music  will 
be  a  processional  to  the  grave  of  her  lost  honor.  But 
when  she  proclaims  to  all  people  without  fear  or 
favor,  the  necessity  of  a  thorough-going  conscience 
and  a  divine  law  of  righteousness  in  every  sphere  of 
life,  the  reverence  of  men  will  cover  her  walls  with 
praise."  ^ 

1  Van  Dyke. 


II 


THE  commo:nwealth  anb  the 

COMMOIST  CKOWD 

WHE!N"  Jesus  was  asked  if  it  were  lawful 
to  render  tribute  to  Csesar  there  were 
among  those  who  awaited  His  reply 
some  who  wished  His  answer  to  ignore  or  deny  the 
claims  of  Caesar.  And  why?  For  the  same  reason 
that  to-day  there  are  Christians  who  seek  the  sooth- 
ing message  of  man's  general  relation  to  a  far-off 
God  and  shun  the  stirring  call  to  the  Christian's 
practical  duty  in  the  affairs  of  the  world.  They  are 
the  class  that  would  have  the  pulpit  —  as  the  Phar- 
isees would  have  had  the  Savior  —  refuse  to  touch 
practical  problems,  the  class  that  loves  to  hear  much 
of  the  sins  of  Pharisee  and  hypocrite  of  old  and 
little  of  the  sins  of  Pharisee  and  hypocrite  in  the 
pew  to-day,  the  class  that  praises  beautiful  word 
painting  of  ancient  customs  and  criticizes  fearless 
analysis  of  modern  conduct,  the  class  that  prefers 
an  indefinite  and  indistinct  gospel  to  a  definite  and 
difficult  gospel,  the  class  that  to-day  —  as  a  whole  — 
would  seek  to  silence  the  rousing  denunciation  of 

John  the  Baptist,  condemn  the  bold  rebuke  of  St. 

22 


Commonwealth  and  Common  Crowd     23 

Paul  and  change  the  Savior  Himself  into  the 
dreamer  and  theorist  that  He  refused  to  be.  As 
He  was  forced,  so  are  His  messengers  to-day  com- 
pelled to  remind  His  people  that  the  gospel  is  two- 
fold, that  "  thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  ^'  is 
but  one-half  —  nay,  that  he  speaks  falsely  who  claims 
the  love  of  God  in  his  heart  when  the  love  of  God^s 
children  everywhere  is  not  evidenced  in  his  deeds. 

This  world  to  which  God  bids  us  render  service 
is  in  the  last  analysis  no  other  than  the  people  who 
inhabit  the  world.  In  one  sense  obedience  to  the 
law  is  meant;  in  a  higher  sense  service  to  those  for 
whose  welfare  the  community  exists.  The  motive  — 
the  heart  of  duty  —  is  deep  unselfish  interest  in  the 
people  who  constitute  the  country,  state  and  com- 
munity. 

History  clearly  sets  forth  the  disastrous  results  of 
the  Christian  church's  failure  to  take  her  part  in  the 
movements  and  struggles  of  the  world.  On  the  one 
hand  is  shown  an  asceticism  that  leaves  the  world  in 
undisturbed  licentiousness  and  weakens  itself  by  soft 
seclusion  and  spiritual  self-indulgence.  On  the 
other  hand  there  stands  the  rioting  world  meeting 
with  gay  derision  the  impotent  denunciations  of  the 
cloistered  soldiers  of  the  Christian  army.  Turning 
to  those  other  chapters  of  history  we  see  the  splendid 
records  of  influence  and  uplift  where  the  Church 
and  the  men  of  the  Church  have  entered  the  field  — 
from  the  influence  that  compelled  Constantine  to  lift 


24  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

the  Christian  cross  to  the  head  of  his  heathen  king- 
dom to  the  influence  that  impels  the  thanksgiving 
proclamation  of  the  President  of  these  United  States. 
It  has  been  a  story  of  lights  and  shadows,  defeats 
and  conquests,  weakness  and  strength,  heroes  and 
false  leaders,  traitors  and  martyrs;  but  it  has  not 
been  the  scene  of  degradation  and  stagnation  that  has 
marked  the  Church's  failure  to  give  intelligent  in- 
terest and  consecrated  service  in  the  battle  of  human 
events.  The  strong  warnings  and  glorious  results  of 
the  past  force  the  Church  to  recall  to-day  the  sig-nifi.- 
cant  truth  that  "  God  so  loved  " —  not  the  separate, 
self-righteous  Christians  —  but  "  the  world,''  that 
"  He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son  "  and  that  He  sent 
His  Son  into  the  world  "  not  to  condemn  the  world 
but  that  the  world  through  Him  might  be  saved." 

That  must  be  the  active,  unceasing  attitude  of  the 
Church  and  her  people. 

Time  forbears  a  sketch  of  the  fascinating  and  cru- 
cial periods  of  the  past  when  secular  and  religious 
history  met  face  to  face  and  mingled  learning  and 
power  and  prayer ;  when  hero  and  saint  marched  side 
by  side ;  when  statesman  in  politics  and  scholar  from 
pulpit  sounded  the  same  strong  message ;  when  chaos 
and  crime  and  error  and  ignorance  gave  way  before 
the  only  right  union  of  Church  and  State,  a  unity  of 
lofty  purpose,  of  single-hearted  souls  and  fearless 
leaders  in  concord  of  spirit  and  harmony  of  action. 
The  need  of  taking  our  part  is  too  urgent  and  wide- 


Commonwealth  and  Common  Crowd     25 

spread  to  permit  a  lingering  on  the  lessons  and  strug- 
gles of  the  past. 

Suffice  it  to  saj  that,  as  even  Gibbon  admits  of 
Home,  the  nations  and  races  that  have  perished  have 
done  so  through  the  lowering  of  national  morality 
and  that  the  Church  as  moral  guide  and  teacher  is 
absolutely  necessary  in  the  daily  v^ork  of  the  world 
for  which  the  Master  lived  and  died.  ISTever  before 
were  its  influence  and  activity  more  imperatively  de- 
manded than  in  the  life  of  this  nation  at  this  time. 

"  The  Son  of  God  goes  forth  to  war  " —  with  the 
sword  of  the  spirit  bathed  in  love.  This  is  the  chal- 
lenge and  the  call  of  the  Battle  Hymn  of  the  Church. 
It  was  never  so  full  of  hope  and  power  as  to-day. 
The  harvest  was  never  so  great  and  the  laborers  were 
never  so  ready  to  respond  to  leadership.  The  spirit 
of  unrest  is  abroad.  The  forces  of  discontent  are 
growing  more  powerful  and  more  determined  every 
day.  The  works  of  evil  are  being  uncovered.  The 
rule  of  injustice  is  being  disputed.  Men  are  giving 
ear  to  the  cry  of  the  submerged  and  the  oppressed. 
The  contest  is  on  between  the  Doctrine  of  Dividends 
and  the  Doctrine  of  Human  Rights,  between  the  Gos- 
pel of  Greed  and  the  Gospel  of  Love  and  Justice. 
Where  will  the  Church  stand?  Shall  the  Church 
take  the  lead  —  without  temporizing  or  compromis- 
ing? Shall  the  Church  maintain  an  exclusive  at- 
titude or  assume  an  inclusive  spirit?  Shall  the 
Church  stand  apart  as  the  sanctuary  of  dead  tradi- 


26  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

tions  or  go  forth  as  the  army  of  the  living  God? 
Shall  the  Church  lose  her  power  by  seeking  to  save 
herself  in  silence  and  selfishness  or  shall  the  Church 
save  her  life  by  losing  herseK  in  service  ?  Shall  the 
Church  be  a  safe  shelter  for  the  sanctified  few  or  a 
strong  deliverer  for  the  oppressed  multitudes  ? 

To  those  who  believe  that  the  Church  is  here,  not 
as  a  passing  institution  but  as  an  essential  and  in- 
creasing force,  what  shall  be  the  position  of  the 
Church  in  this  day  ?  Shall  the  Church  not  only  jus- 
tify its  existence  but  exercise  and  amplify  its  in- 
fluence ?  Will  the  Church  not  only  quicken  the  con- 
science and  answer  the  needs  but  gain  the  full  confi- 
dence of  the  people  ?  If  so,  with  what  message  and 
in  what  spirit  ?     Why  is  the  chuech  heke  ? 

The  Church  is  here ;  not  as  a  pulpit  to  preach  in- 
frequent truths  to  passing  congregations,  leaving 
them  to  f orgetfulness  or  at  best  to  the  waste  and  in- 
effectiveness of  individual  effort,  but  as  an  army  of 
compact  forces,  with  the  efficiency  of  unity,  the  im- 
pact of  a  body  and  the  power  of  a  united  advance 
against  the  tremendous  forces  of  wrong  and  evil. 

The  Church  is  here;  not  as  an  organization  apart 
from  society  and  gov3rnment,  waiting  upon  the  wants 
of  the  few  who  seek  its  strength  and  consolation ;  not 
as  the  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness  as  though 
the  Christ  had  not  yet  come,  but  as  the  Kingdom 
established  to  serve  and  to  save  society  —  not  by  the 
limited  method  of  sending  reborn  men  to  serve  so- 


Commonwealth  and  Common  Crowd     2T 

ciety  but  with  the  Christ-given  mission  to  make  a 
reborn  society  serve  men ;  not  solely  to  set  the  King- 
dom of  God  to  work  in  the  kingdom  of  men  but  to 
set  the  kingdom  of  men  at  work  in  the  Kingdom  of 
God. 

The  Church  is  here;  not  as  a  close  corporation 
controlled  by  clergy  and  church  officials,  but  as  a 
commonwealth  of  equal  responsibility  to  all,  grant- 
ing to  every  adherent  full  franchise  in  its  affairs  and 
full  voice  in  its  uncensored  councils,  keeping  the 
widow's  mite  and  the  publican's  prayer  where  the 
Master  left  them,  in  the  place  of  highest  honor  and 
as  the  ideal  for  our  attainment. 

The  Church  is  here;  not  as  the  jealous  possession 
of  orthodoxy  and  the  breeding  ground  of  bigotry,  but 
as  the  welcome  home  of  every  vital  truth,  the  com- 
mon ground  of  fellowship  with  all  who  serve  hu- 
manity, eager  to  enlist  with  all  who  stand  for  Christ, 
glad  to  learn  of  all  who  hold  fresh  truths,  willing  to 
share  with  all  whatever  truth  she  holds;  with  no  de- 
sire —  and  no  right  —  to  an  attitude  more  exclusive 
or  a  fellowship  less  inclusive,  to  a  spirit  less  unsel- 
fish and  to  service  less  comprehensive,  than  the  teach- 
ing of  her  Founder  justifies  and  the  life  of  her 
Savior  inspires. 

Despite  the  failures  and  unworthiness  of  even  the 
best,  despite  her  own  mistakes  and  her  people's  im- 
perfections, the  Church  still  keeps  the  Christ  before 
the  world  and  "  though  with  a  scornful  wonder,  men 


28  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

see  her  sore  oppressed,"  neither  the  treachery  of  false 
prophets  within  nor  the  power  of  evil  without  shall 
prevail  so  long  as  the  Church's  "  one  foundation  is 
Jesus  Christ  her  Lord." 

Is  there  a  growing  recognition  of  the  necessity  of 
righteousness  ?  Is  there  a  general  movement  toward 
brotherhood?  Is  there  a  public  demand  that  the 
law  shall  become  the  protector  of  human  rights  and 
the  embodiment  of  social  justice?  An  affirmative 
answer  is  justified  by  evidence  strong  and  abundant. 
It  begins  with  the  children's  court  in  city  halls 
and  extends  to  the  senate  chamber  of  the  nation's 
capitol.  It  is  evidenced  by  the  co^ntless  organiza- 
tions constantly  at  work  to  create  laws  for  the  safety, 
welfare  and  moral  uplift  of  the  people.  There  is 
not  an  orphan  child,  nor  an  overworked  shop  girl, 
nor  an  underpaid  employee,  whose  cause  is  not  that  of 
strong  organizations  of  men  and  women  of  all  classes. 
The  opening  of  each  session  of  State  Legislature  and 
ISTational  Congress  witnesses  an  ever  enlarging  in- 
fluence of  the  voluntary  champions  of  justice  and 
right. 

The  day  is  coming  —  and  coming  soon  —  when  the 
political  boss  will  vacate  his  room  in  the  state  capi- 
tol and  his  place  will  be  taken  by  non-partizan  leaders 
of  every  good  cause.  The  hour  has  come  when  the 
best  men  and  the  best  women  must  not  be  ashamed 
in  the  presence  nor  afraid  of  the  threats  of  those 
who  deny  their  right  to  challenge  the  control  too  long 


Commonwealth  and  Conmion  Crowd     29 

held  by  representatives  of  vested  interests  against  hu- 
man rights.  It  is  well  to  count  the  cost  of  the  strug- 
gle with  those  whose  money  and  lives  are  invested  in 
wrong.  But  it  is  also  well  to  mark  the  present  ad- 
vance and  note  the  increasing  power  of  the  forces  of 
right. 

It  is  well  to  recall  the  time  when  drunkenness  was 
the  daily  indulgence,  gambling  the  nightly  recrea- 
tion and  bribery  the  unrebuked  practise  in  legislative 
halls  of  state  and  nation;  when  there  was  not  one 
law  against  child-slavery,  white-slavery  or  wage- 
slavery  ;  when  the  crimes  of  colossal  corporations  went 
unpunished  and  the  smallest  offenses  of  an  unpro- 
tected waif  brought  inhuman  punishment  by  unjust 
laws ;  when  every  prison  was  a  foul  purgatory ;  when 
only  the  rich  received  the  advantage  of  education  and 
the  protection  of  the  law.  To-day  the  drunkard 
stands  disgTaced  in  decent  society  and  debarred  from 
almost  every  avenue  of  business.  To-day  gambling 
and  bribery  are  high  crimes.  To-day  the  toiling 
child,  the  betrayed  girl  and  the  ignorant  laborer  find 
the  swift  protection  of  a  great  government  and  the 
saving  sympathy  of  a  strong  people.  To-day  the 
courts  are  convicting  corporations  and  throwing  pro- 
tection around  the  innocent  guilt  of  little  children. 
To-day  prisons  are  opening  their  darkened  cells  for 
light  and  cleansing,  leading  their  inmates  out  into  the 
open  toil  that  gives  health  and  the  clear  sunlight  that 
restores  sanity.     To-day  the  rich  are  finding  their 


30  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

riclies  to  be  less  of  a  false  protection  and  more  of  a 
tremendous  responsibility ;  less  the  sole  inheritance  of 
the  few  and  more  the  rightful  share  of  the  many. 

We  do  well  to  reflect  that  while  every  policeman 
who  hunts  for  crime  must  open  his  records  to  the 
public  reporter,  there  are  no  agents  employed  to  dis- 
cover or  chronicle  goodness.  It  is  well  to  bear  in 
mind  the  great  silent  strength  and  steady  growth  of 
the  forces  of  good,  despite  the  sins  whose  stains  we 
see,  the  enemies  whose  opposition  we  feel  and  the 
cynics  whose  doubts  we  encounter.  A  mighty  rev- 
olution is  going  on  around  us  to-day.  A  profound 
and  complete  change  is  being  made  under  our  very 
eyes.  Many  of  us  may  live  to  see  it  through.  The 
welfare  of  multitudes  of  people  is  being  wrought  out 
on  a  vaster  scale  than  ever  before.  It  is  a  spiritual 
struggle,  for  it  is  moving  through  the  hearts  and 
minds  and  consciences  of  those  who  are  set  to  the 
task  of  bringing  in  the  Better  Day.  Let  us  thank 
God  that  it  is  coming  in  this  way,  for  on  no  other 
foundation  can  human  welfare  rest  secure.  And 
what  is  the  Church's  part?  Hers  is  the  supreme 
part,  for  above  all  the  world's  institutions  the  Church 
stands  for  the  things  of  the  spirit,  without  which  men 
degenerate  while  they  prosper  and  die  while  they 
live. 

In  the  first  place  the  multitudes  now  deprived  of 
their  rights  will  not  come  into  their  own  until  the 
public  heart  shall  feel  their  wrongs  and  the  public 


Commonwealth  and  Common  Crowd     31 

conscience  shall  adjudge  their  rights  —  and  the 
Churcli  must  bear  the  message  which  will  reach  that 
heart  and  the  Church  must  furnish  the  power  which 
will  quicken  and  guide  that  conscience. 

There  are  three  great  motives  that  must  move  the 
Church  to  lead  and  mold  the  coming  era  of  brother- 
hood and  justice.  The  first  is  to  maintain  her  own 
honor  and  insure  her  own  power.  If  we  do  not 
speak  and  act  now,  if  we  can  not  show  the  just  cause 
of  all  who  suffer  injustice,  then  when  the  change 
comes  our  message  will  be  rejected  and  our  efforts 
despised. 

The  second  great  motive  that  must  move  the  Church 
at  this  crisis  is  the  essential  welfare  of  humanity. 
Without  the  Christian  bond  of  brotherhood,  material 
conditions  may  change  but  men  will  still  be  divided 
into  ruling  classes  and  struggling  masses.  Without 
the  Christian  message  of  love  infused  into  the  very 
heart  of  this  mighty  coming  change,  the  forces  of 
labor  and  the  people  of  poverty  may  get  what  they 
want,  but  it  will  be  bred  by  a  violence  and  born  of  a 
hatred  whose  bitter  fruits  will  be  the  heritage  of  chil- 
dren yet  unborn.  Already  the  Church  has  the  tre- 
mendous task  of  lifting  the  deep  class  hatred  so  wide- 
spread to-day  and  in  its  place  planting  the  standard 
of  the  welfare  of  all.  Already  the  Church  has  the 
impelling  mission  of  transforming  the  social  selfish- 
ness that  separates  into  the  spirit  of  service  that 
knows  no  difference  between  brother  and  brother  and 


32  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

makes  no  divisions  in  the  common  family  of  the  God 
and  Father  of  all. 

And  the  third  motive  for  the  Church  to  give  her- 
seK  at  this  time  is  the  simple  motive  of  loyalty  to 
her  Founder.  The  Friend  of  publicans,  sinners  and 
outcasts ;  the  Champion  of  the  lowest  and  the  least ; 
commanding  us  to  love  our  neighbor  as  ourselves, 
zealous  for  the  bodily  well-being  of  all  who  suffered, 
full  of  human  compassion,  unashamed  to  do  the  low- 
liest work  and  unafraid  to  die  the  lowest  death,  Jesus 
the  world's  Kedeemer  is  our  Challenge,  our  Example, 
and  our  Power. 

I  would  summon  attention  to  one  among  the  fast 
multiplying  signs  of  the  stirring  of  the  social  con- 
science of  the  Church.  Both  the  source  from  which 
it  comes  and  the  language  by  which  it  speaks  make  it 
worthy  of  profound  reflection  on  the  part  of  those  who 
"  profess  and  call  themselves  Christians." 

"  Whereas,  the  moral  and  spiritual  welfare  of  the  people  de- 
mands that  the  highest  possible  standard  of  living  should 
everywhere  be  maintained,  and  that  all  conduct  of  industry 
should  emphasize  the  search  for  such  higher  and  more  human 
forms  and  organization  as  will  generally  elicit  the  personal 
initiative  and  self-respect  of  the  workman,  and  give  him  a 
definite  personal  stake  in  the  system  of  production  to  which 
his  life  is  given,  and 

Whereas,  injustice  and  disproportionate  inequality  as  well 
as  misunderstanding,  prejudice  and  mutual  distrust  as  be- 
tween employer  and  employee  are  widespread  in  our  social 
and  industrial  life  to-day: 

Therefore  be  it  resolved,  the  House  of  Bishops  concurring, 

That  we,  the  members  of  the  General  Convention  of  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Chureh,  do  hereby  affirm  that  the  Church 


Commonwealth  and  Common  Crowd     33 

stands  for  the  ideal  of  social  justice  and  that  it  demands  the 
achievement  of  a  social  order  in  which  the  social  cause  of  pov- 
erty and  the  gross  human  waste  of  the  present  order  shall  be 
eliminated;  and  in  which  every  worker  shall  have  a  just  re- 
turn for  that  which  he  produces,  a  free  opportunity  for  self- 
development  and  a  fair  share  in  all  the  gains  of  progress. 
And  since  such  a  social  order  can  only  be  achieved  progres- 
sively by  the  effort  of  men  and  women  who  in  the  spirit  of 
Christ  put  the  common  welfare  above  private  gain  the  Church 
calls  upon  every  communicant,  Clerical  and  Lay,  seriously  to 
take  part  in  the  study  of  the  complex  conditions  under  which 
we  are  called  upon  to  live,  and  so  to  act  that  the  present  preju- 
dice and  injustice  may  be  supplanted  by  mutual  understand- 
ing, sympathy  and  just  dealings,  and  the  ideal  of  thorough- 
going democracy  may  be  finally  realized  in  our  land."  i 


1  Extract  from  resolution  passed  by  the  General  Convention 
of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  the  United  States,  Octo- 
ber,  1913. 


Ill 

THE  CALL  TO  EE-INTERPEET 

THEEE  is  need  to-day  to  face  and  to  interpret 
two  false  forms  of  belief  as  to  purpose  and 
mission  of  the  Churcli.  They  are  found  in 
the  teachings  of  some  of  the  Latin  Fathers  who 
molded  the  thought  of  the  Church  after  the  Apostles' 
day.  Gradually  they  became  general  until  they  gov- 
erned the  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages.  In  many 
quarters  they  prevail  to-day.  They  have  carried  with 
them  a  train  of  unfortunate  effects. 

The  first  is  that  the  Church  was  founded  solely  to 
furnish  salvation  in  eternity.  Heaven  and  the  Here- 
after formed  its  main  thought.  Church  membership 
had  as  its  underlying  purpose  to  insure  for  future 
safety.  The  Church  stood  as  the  old  testament  ark 
—  a  protection  against  eternal  judgment,  to  come  like 
■flood  of  old  as  the  great  final  catastrophe.  Her  mis- 
sion was  to  lead  men  along  the  narrow  path,  single- 
file,  the  eye  of  the  soul  seeing  only  the  distant  goal 
of  a  far-off  redemption. 

The  second  false  interpretation  was  to  make  a  sharp 

division  into  the  sacred  and  the  secular,  not  only  as 

separate  from  but  hostile  to  each  other.     Ignoring 

34 


The  Call  to  Re-Interpret  85 

the  obvious  application  of  the  Incarnation  of  the 
Divine  Christ  in  human  form  and  life  —  they  set 
the  divine  against  the  human.  The  highest  purpose 
of  the  Church  was  to  keep  herseK  holy.  Her  chief 
mission  was  to  define  and  dispense  doctrines  for  the 
faithful,  to  formulate  and  furnish  a  creed  solely  as  a 
chart  for  steering  the  sanctified  soul  safely  through 
a  world  that  was  wholely  secular  and  inherently 
wicked.  God's  one  dwelling  place  was  the  Church, 
whose  functions  and  ministry  alone  had  the  right  to 
be  called  sacred. 

Our  purpose  is  to  make  a  constructive  contribu- 
tion —  a  definite  addition  to  clearer  faith  and  truer 
lives  and  higher  thinking  in  the  Church  to-day.  If 
we  begin  by  directing  thought  to  past  errors  in  belief 
it  shall  be  because  of  their  continued  effect  upon  the 
modern  church,  because  they  have  a  practical  bear- 
ing on  the  purpose  and  a  vital  message  to  the  mis- 
sion of  the  Church  to-day.  We  shall  think  of  these 
false  beliefs  as  the  basis  of  false  standards  and  the 
source  of  false  lives.  The  relation  of  belief  to  life  is 
inseparable.  What  we  think  not  only  dictates  what 
we  do  but  governs  what  we  leave  undone.  This  re- 
lation was  frequently  brought  out  by  Christ  and  the 
Apostles.  "  Take  no  anxious  thought."  "  Whatso- 
ever things  are  pure,  etc.,  think  on  these."  What  lay 
behind  the  allegiance  of  the  disciples  ?  —  belief  in 
Christ.     "  Whom  say  ye  that  I  am  ?  " 

Making  allowance  for  the  exceptional,  the  vast 


86  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

body  of  evil  lives  and  the  great  sum  of  human  crimes 
are  of  men  without  belief  in  right  things.  It  may  be 
due  to  ignorance,  environment  or  wilful  refusal  to 
accept.  How  then  did  the  two  false  beliefs  of 
medieval  Christianity  divert  its  purpose  and  mark 
its  mission  ?  They  polluted  the  course  of  the  Church 
and  corrupted  the  conduct  of  the  clergy.  They  do 
so  to-day  —  though  to  less  degree  —  and  will  until 
we  unlearn  much  and  learn  more. 

Heaven  and  eternity  must  be  rightly  related  to 
life.  This  does  not  mean  a  discarding  of  the  right- 
ful hope  of  Heaven  as  the  home  eternal.  It  does 
not  mean  a  denial  of  the  just  and  inevitable  conse- 
quences of  deliberate  sin  and  wilful  wrong  doing. 
It  does  mean  the  putting  away  of  the  falsely  su- 
preme (and  supremely  false)  conception  of  gain- 
ing Heaven  and  escaping  Hell  as  the  sole  purpose  of 
our  being  put  here  by  Almighty  God.  This  must  be 
done  to  correct  both  the  internal  hypocrisy  and  the 
external  blunders  and  outrages  which  over-run  the 
Church's  biogTaphy  and  stain  the  pages  of  secular 
history. 

These  are  evidenced  in  the  present  hymnology, 
despite  the  drastic  revision  of  recent  years.  How 
dare  we  sing  "  Weary  of  earth  "  while  professing  to 
believe  Christ's  word  "  I  am  come  that  ye  might  have 
life  "  and  at  the  last  "  Father,  I  pray  not  that  thou 
shouldst  take  them  out  of  the  world."  Or,  take  St. 
Paul's  splendid  utterance,  while  under  the  pain  of 


The  Call  to  Re-Interpret  37 

the  thorn  in  the  flesh  and  under  the  hatred  of  former 
friends :  "  To  me  to  die  is  gain  but  to  live  is  Christ." 
Heaven  as  an  awarded  prize  hereafter  and  not  as  an 
attainable  possession  here  —  to  what  further  did  this 
belief  lead  ?  It  led  to  the  disregard  of  the  funda- 
mental fact  of  the  Christian  faith  —  the  loss  of  self 
in  the  service  of  others.  It  culminated  in  the  con- 
sternation of  those  who  cried  "  Lord,  when  saw  we 
thee  ?  " —  so  intent  on  saving  themselves,  so  absorbed 
in  the  search  for  the  way  to  Heaven. 

Christ  had  defined  Himself  as  the  Way,  the  Truth 
and  the  Life.  Their  conception  did  not  reach  be- 
yond the  way  —  and  they  gave  it  the  barren  inter- 
pretation of  a  literally  narrow  way  —  so  narrow  that 
they  failed  or  feared  to  go  aside  —  to  venture  over 
into  the  wayside.  They  dare  not  get  out  of  the  path, 
no  matter  what  was  beyond  its  borders.  It  might  be 
the  one  stranger,  beaten  and  bruised  and  robbed.  It 
might  be  hungry  multitudes.  So  intent  on  their  race 
to  Heaven  they  did  not  take  time  to  remember  His 
condemnation  of  the  priest  who  passed  by  on  the 
other  side  —  his  own  safe  side.  They  forgot  that 
Jesus  cut  short  a  divine  discourse  to  feed  the  multi- 
tude on  whom  "  He  had  compassion.'^  Pursuing  the 
upward  path  to  Heaven  they  could  not  hear  down 
below  the  cry  of  little  children  —  oppressed,  neg- 
lected, over-worked.  They  did  not  know  that  they 
were  leaving  a  Christ  behind  with  the  children  whom 
He  supremely  loved.     They  were  too  absorbed  to 


38  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

recall  His  divine  verdict  on  "  whomsoever  should  put 
a  stumbling  block  in  the  way  of  one  of  these  little 
ones."  And  the  outcome  of  this  false  attitude  was 
to  make  the  Church  a  monastery  shut  out  of  the  world 
instead  of  a  Kingdom  at  work  in  the  world.  It  bred 
that  monasticism  called  christian  but  totally  foreign 
to  Christ.  Their  way  has  been  termed  "  an  attempt 
to  overcome  the  world  by  running  away  from  it." 
It  uttered  pious  platitudes  to  the  elect  and  pronounced 
dogmatic  damnation  upon  the  non-elect.  It  set  aside 
Christ's  command  to  the  Church  "  Go  ye  and  save  — 
now  " ;  and  substituted  the  command  "  Come  in  and 
be  safe  hereafter." 

To  the  enslaved  and  oppressed  it  dealt  out  promises 
of  a  future  redemption,  with  no  effort  to  bring  about 
that  rightful  and  real  redemption  from  wrong  and  in- 
justice without  which  God's  universe  is  made  to  ap- 
pear His  perpetual  mistake  and  His  open  shame. 
The  Church  was  governed  by  men  who  prophesied 
smooth  things  to  those  who  accepted  her  plan  of  sal- 
vation. She  filled  her  theology  with  theories  of  the 
devil  and  definitions  of  Hell  hereafter,  while  she  per- 
mitted the  devil  to  go  unchallenged  and  Hell  to  hold 
carnival  in  the  business  corruption,  the  military  car- 
nage and  the  social  cruelties  of  the  practises  she  failed 
to  correct  and  the  castes  she  helped  to  create.  Thus 
did  the  Church  throughout  a  phase  of  false  belief  and 
a  period  of  false  prophets.  Thus  would  the  Church 
again  to-day  divert  her  purpose  and  delay  her  mission 


The  Call  to  Re-Interpret  39 

if  the  bigot  should  gain  her  rule  and  the  conservative 
control  her  conscience.  There  are  those  now  who  see 
in  Christ  the  accepted  way  but  not  the  reforming 
life.  There  are  those  who  would  purchase  their  final 
heaven  at  the  price  of  other  men's  living  hells.  There 
are  those  who  seek  the  Church  as  the  ark  of  their 
own  safety,  or  even  the  mark  of  their  own  respecta- 
bility, unmoved  by  the  dangers  that  engulf  and  the 
disrepute  that  degrades  their  fellow-men.  There  are 
those  who  would  hold  the  Church  aloof  from  the 
reformation  of  laws  that  corrupt  and  the  reclamation 
of  society's  victims  who  cry  aloud  for  redemption 
from  social  wrongs.  God  grant  them  a  swift  con- 
version of  heart  ere  they  enter  that  life  where  the 
^'  last  shall  be  first."  God  give  them  a  clearer,  wider 
vision  of  the  real  business  of  the  King,  ere  He  calls 
them  to  account. 

"  Three  hundred  thousand  church-spires  raised  to 
the  glory  of  Christ !  Three  hundred  million  human 
creatures  baptized  into  His  service !  *  I  trust  the 
Almighty  to  give  the  victory  to  my  arms ! '  '  Let 
your  hearts  beat  to  God  and  your  fists  in  the  face  of 
the  enemy ! '  'In  prayer  we  call  God's  blessing  on 
our  valiant  troops  ! '  God  on  the  lips  of  every  poten- 
tate, and  under  the  hundred  thousand  spires  prayer 
that  twenty-two  million  servants  of  Christ  may  re- 
ceive from  God  the  blessed  strength  to  tear  and  blow 
one  another  to  pieces,  to  ravage  and  burn,  to  wrench 
husbands  from  their  wives  and  fathers  from  their 


40  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

children,  to  starve  the  poor  and  everywhere  destroy 
the  works  of  the  spirit !  ^  God  be  with  ns  to  the 
death  and  dishonor  of  our  foes  ' —  that  God  who  gave 
His  only  begotten  Son  to  bring  on  earth  peace  and 
good- will  toward  men!  'No  creed  can  stand  against 
such  reeling  subversion  of  its  foundation.  After  this 
monstrous  mockery,  beneath  this  grinning  skull  of 
irony,  how  shall  there  remain  faith  in  a  religion 
preached  and  practised  to  such  ends  ?  When  this  war 
is  over  and  reason  resumes  its  sway  our  dogmas  will 
be  found  scored  through  forever."  ^ 

We  are  called  to  hear  to-day  the  vastest  cry  of 
human  anguish  that  ever  ascended  to  the  throne  of 
the  Father.  We  are  called  to  witness  the  greatest 
warning  ever  given  to  a  people  who  love  peace  and 
honor  the  flag  of  freedom.  We  are  called  to  look 
more  humbly  into  the  face  of  God,  whose  universe 
men  have  mutilated  and  whose  heart  humanity  has 
hurt.  We  are  called  to  come  closer  to  the  Christ 
who  rises  more  superbly  than  ever  as  the  One  su- 
premely strong.  We  are  called  to  pray  more  con- 
stantly "  Lord  God  of  hosts  be  with  us  yet,  lest  we 
forget,"  to  fit  ourselves  for  the  reawakened  day  when 
"  The  tumult  and  the  shouting  dies,  The  captains  and 
the  kings  depart."  We  are  called  to  reject  the  ex- 
ploded theory  that  the  surest  road  to  peace  is  that 
guarded  by  the  biggest  army  and  the  best  navy.  It 
is  a  call  and  a  challenge  away  from  these  things.     It 

1  Galsworthy. 


The  Call  to  Re-Interpret  41 

calls  us  beyond  tlie  birth  of  our  independence  won  by 
arms  back  to  tlie  doctrine  of  our  interdependence  won 
by  the  williiig  sacrifice  of  the  Son  of  God.  It  chal- 
lenges us  to  make  choice  between  God  and  Csesar,  if 
need  be  between  Christ  and  Country.  It  calls  us  to 
"  seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteous- 
ness." It  bids  us  remember  Euskin's  warning  that 
"  God  will  put  up  with  a  good  deal  but  not  with  a 
second  place."  It  reminds  us,  as  Kipling  in  vain 
reminded  his  own  Kingdom: 

"  Fair  is  our  lot,  O  goodly  is  our  heritage, 

Humble  ye  my  people  and  be  fearful  in  your  mirth; 

lor  the  Lord  our  God  most  High  He  hath  made  the  deep  as 
dry. 

He  hath  smote  for  us  a  pathway  to  the  ends  of  all  the  earth. 

Yea  though  we  sinned,  though  our  rulers  fell  from  righteous- 
ness, 

Deep  in  all  dishonor  though  we  stained  our  garments'  hem; 

O  be  ye  not  dismayed, 

Though  we  stumbled  and  we  strayed; 

We  were  led  by  evil  counselors,  the  Lord  shall  deal  with  them. 

Keep  ye  the  law,  be  swift  in  all  obedience. 

Clear  the  land  of  evil,  build  the  road  and  bridge  the  ford; 

Be  ye  sure  to  each  his  own,  He  shall  reap  what  he  hath  sown, 

By  the  peace  among  our  people  let  men  know  we  serve  the 
Lord." 

Every  mother  made  childless,  every  wife  whose 
husband  is  torn  from  her  side,  every  babe  forced  to 
become  fatherless  —  every  heart  that  bleeds  and 
every  sob  that  chokes  in  Europe's  vast  domain  of 
human  anguish  is  a  call  and  a  challenge  to  all  who 
confess  the  Eatherhood  of  God  and  profess  the 
Brotherhood  of  Man.     A  call  and  a  challenge  to 


42  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

what  ?  ISTot  to  the  frantic  fervor  that  would  turn  our 
Democracy  into  a  military  camp,  l^ot  to  the  false 
philosophy  that  might  makes  right,  that  God  is  on  the 
side  of  the  physically  strongest.  It  is  not  the  white- 
book  of  diplomacy  but  the  red  blood  of  human  suffer- 
ing that  makes  its  appeal  to  us  as  Christians.  It  is 
not  English  King  nor  Prussian  Emperor  who  should 
have  a  hearing  in  America  to-day.  It  is  the  cause  of 
humanity  against  the  cause  of  inhumanity.  It  is 
the  call  of  the  people  who  belong  to  life  and  to  whom 
life  belongs.  It  is  the  hosts  of  men  marshaled  to 
wholesale  murder,  mistaking  the  madness  of  passion 
for  the  majesty  of  patriotism.  It  is  the  multitude 
of  happy  and  united  homes  broken  beyond  recognition 
and  restoration. 

A  splendid  thing  is  signified  by  the  almost  uni- 
versal discarding  of  the  usual  literature  idealizing 
war,  exalting  death,  depicting  the  glories  of  the  bat- 
tle-field. We  have  gone  beyond  all  this.  We  have 
learned  that  useless  death  is  a  crime  against  God, 
nature  and  human  life.  We  shall  learn  that  war 
cannot  be  idealized,  since  it  is  the  substitution  of  the 
primeval  instinct  of  beast  and  savage  for  the  ideal 
of  reason  and  law  and  love.  We  shall  learn  that 
there  is  nothing  necessarily  heroic  in  shooting  a 
human  being,  whether  under  the  contagious  fervor 
of  battle  or  the  private  motive  of  revenge.  We  shall 
learn  that  to  die  is  not  necessarily  noble  —  nay,  is 
frequently  ignoble  —  that  a  man  will  face  death  for 


The  Call  to  Re-Interpret  43 

the  sake  of  robbing  an  express  train,  of  making  a 
record  in  mountain  climbing  or  breaking  a  record  in 
an  automobile  race. 

And  so  we  are  seeing  a  fundamental  change  in  the 
very  phraseology  about  the  war  which  argues  a  funda- 
mental change  of  heart,  a  finer  conception  of  life  and 
a  higher  hold  of  conscience.  It  is  the  hospital  that 
ministers  to  life,  and  not  the  machine  gun  that 
destroys  life;  it  is  the  nurse  with  the  red-cross  band 
and  not  the  warrior  with  the  blood-stained  sword;  it 
is  the  cry  of  defenseless  women  and  innocent  chil- 
dren and  not  the  might  of  the  iron  monarch ;  it  is  the 
plea  of  devastated  homes  and  demolished  art  and  not 
the  praise  of  the  inventor  of  powder  and  lead ;  it  is 
peace  and  not  war ;  Christ  and  not  l^apoleon  —  it 
is  these  that  every  hour  more  surely  establishes  in  the 
mastery  of  the  ages  to  follow.  We  are  called  to 
search  our  own  hearts,  to  face  conditions  in  our  own 
land,  to  name  no  man  a  patriot  who  is  ready  to  go  to 
war  but  not  ready  to  pay  honest  taxes,  who  stands  for 
the  rights  of  his  country  and  evades  the  laws  of  his 
commonwealth,  who  will  fight  the  danger  of  oppres- 
sion from  across  the  seas  and  feeds  on  the  oppression 
of  those  under  him  in  business,  who  prates  of  justice 
in  the  abstract  and  practises  daily  injustice. 


IV 

THE  CALL  TO  EEADJUSTMENT 


T 


< '  r  ■  ^  HE  first  shall  be  last  and  the  last  first." 
There  is  a  peculiarity  about  the  language 
of  the  Great  Teacher.  Into  almost  every 
sentence  that  He  uttered  may  be  read  a  significance 
more  lasting  than  its  literal  meaning.  After  two 
thousand  years  of  profound  study,  of  critical  and 
reverent  scholarship  and  of  interpretation  by  the  pul- 
pit of  every  age,  we  have  not  as  yet  understood,  much 
less  exhausted,  the  full  meaning  of  His  sayings. 
Life  alone  is  the  full  interpreter  of  His  words. 

We  shall  not  take  His  words  here  for  their  obvious 
meaning  and  in  their  familiar  interpretation.  Be- 
neath them  rest  a  deeper  meaning  and  a  wider  force 
than  that  of  a  final  distant  judgment,  when  the  great- 
est here  shall  be  among  the  least  there,  the  lowest 
shall  be  the  highest,  the  last  shall  be  the  first.  In 
this  world  now,  in  your  day  and  mine,  in  these 
present  lives  of  ours,  this  principle  is  at  work.  It 
is  not  an  arbitrary  upsetting  and  overturning  of 
things  by  an  over-ruling  Providence,  but  simply  a 

righteous  readjustment  and  restoration  of  the  things 

44 


The  Call  to  Readjustment  45 

which  we  have  permitted  to  be  wrested  from  their 
proper  places.  We  have  been  slow  to  learn  that 
nothing  can  remain  permanently  out  of  its  place  in 
this  world  which  belongs  to  the  God  of  Law  and  Eight 
and  Love.  All  too  slowly  have  we  adopted  the  old 
adage  that  ^^  nothing  is  settled  until  it  is  settled 
right." 

A  man  may  place  unrighteousness  first,  may  even 
give  his  whole  life  over  to  it,  but  somehow  and  some 
time  righteousness  will  regain  and  retain  its  usurped 
dominion,  though  to  win  it  must  crush  his  biggest 
ambition  and  destroy  his  dearest  idol  —  though  he 
lose  his  life  before  he  can  gain  it,  though  the  struggle 
last  through  this  and  on  into  the  other  life.  The 
world  may  repudiate  first  things,  the  human  race  may 
lose  its  first  child-like  purity  and  faith,  mankind  may 
set  up  false  gods  of  Intellect  and  Pride  and  Force,  but 
these  things  will  give  way  and  the  first  shall  resume 
their  place;  the  human  race  shall  be  redeemed  and 
God  will  claim  again  His  own,  though  it  be  necessary 
to  bring  the  Son  of  God  Himself  to  spend  His  life  on 
earth  and  lose  it  on  a  cross. 

In  his  book  on  "  The  Marks  of  a  Man  ''  Kobert  E. 
Speer  says:  "James  Chalmers  was  what  he  was, 
because  as  a  lad  of  twelve  a  single  obscure  unnoticed 
influence  had  gone  across  his  life.  I  suspect,"  says 
Mr.  Speer,  "  that,  if  at  the  end  we  look  back  over  our 
lives,  we  shall  see  that  the  thing  which  has  determined 
our  career  has  been  some  inconspicuous  and  obscure 


46  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

and  unnoticed  incident,  so  inconspicuous  maybe,  that 
it  slipped  entirely  out  of  our  memory."  First  among 
those  things,  then,  where  the  demand  for  readjusts 
ment  comes  is  the  lesson  of  giving  more  frequent 
heed  to  the  little  and  apparently  commonplace,  as 
being  among  those  things  which  will  some  day  force 
their  way  to  the  place  from  which  we  have  sought  to 
keep  them,  and  will  at  last  prove  to  be  among  the  po- 
tent influences  and  telling  opportunities  of  our  life. 
It  is  for  us  to  beware  lest  we  miss  their  meaning  and 
lose  their  reward.  Acting  under  the  generous  im- 
pulse, let  us  be  unafraid  and  unashamed  to  give  and 
to  respond  with  the  best  within  us  in  those  small 
spaces  of  time,  those  brief  opportunities,  crowded 
hours  and  hurrying  chances  which  we  all  too  gener- 
ally underestimate  or  overlook. 

Another  realm  in  which  men  practise  this  hazard- 
ous and  hurtful  reversal  of  things  is  the  realm  of 
failure  and  success,  the  thing  and  the  man,  the  end 
and  MEANS.  What  is  our  attitude  toward  failure 
and  disappointment?  How  frequently  sensitive 
pride  or  bitter  mortification  usurp  the  place  of  a 
consecrating  humility,  an  enlightened  reawakening 
and  an  ennobling  resolution!  How  we  need  to  see 
that  the  things  which  we  fail  to  grasp  and  conquer 
in  misfortune  are  just  the  things  which  shall  be  our 
undoing  in  good-fortune.  Take  for  instance,  a  life 
where  a  right  and  strong  ambition  is  hampered  by 
poverty  and  held  back  by  unfavorable  environment. 


The  Call  to  Readjustment  47 

How  rarely  does  there  come  at  such  a  time  a  convic- 
tion that  these  very  detaining  and  harassing  condi- 
tions are  seeking  to  contribute  their  invaluable  les- 
sons.    They  call  to  sacrifice,  to  gratitude  for  un- 
recognized blessings,  to  full  appreciation  of  the  fun- 
damental goodness   and  protection   of   God.     They 
plead  for  a  wider  sympathy  with  all  others  of  that 
vast  number  who  are  held  back,  circumscribed  and 
thwarted  in  their  endeavors.     Unless  we  place  the 
lessons  of  loss,  privation  and  denial  above  their  sting 
and  pressure,  unless  appreciation  of  these  lessons  be- 
comes a  thing  deeply  rooted  in  grateful  heart  and 
enlightened  mind,  the  very  restoration  of  health  or 
wealth  or  joy  sweeps  aside  our  good  but  shallow  reso- 
lutions.    Unless  in  poverty  and  under  restraint  we 
grip  the  principle  of  self-mastery  and  conquer  the 
.spirit  of  self-indulgence,  there  will  be  left  no  power 
to  master  ourselves  under  better  circumstances,  no 
fellowship  with  humanity,  and  no  joy  of  generosity 
when  our  lives  are  lifted  to  the  freer,  fuller  and  more 
fortunate  lot. 

The  Christian's  first  contest  is  with  self.  His  ob- 
jective ambition  is  secondary.  Therefore  if  it  fail 
—  he  will  not  fail.  He  shall  learn  that  some  times 
"the  work  may  be  a  failure,  but  the  worker 
stronger,  the  thing  may  not  have  been  accomplished 
but  the  man  may  be  a  more  accomplished  man.''  All 
the  force  of  a  burdened,  broken  and  brief  life  rests 
behind  these  words  of  a  great  American  preacher: 


48  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

"  If  failure  has  taught  jou  that  it  is  not  how  many 
tools  a  man  has,  but  how  well  he  works  with  what  he 
has  that  interests  God,  if  failure  has  taught  you  that 
manhood  is  worth  more  than  money,  that  money 
without  manhood  is  contemptible,  eternal  bank- 
ruptcy; that  the  circumstances  of  life  are  only  its 
scaffolding,  within  which  the  true  temple  of  a  Christ- 
like character  is  to  be  built  —  then  you  should  thank 
God  with  full  heart  for  your  teacher." 

Are  we  placing  some  objective  ambition,  some 
mark  of  popular  esteem  or  outward  success  first,  and 
permitting  our  principles,  our  characters  and  our 
lives  to  follow  into  whatever  devious  paths  our 
diverted  energies  may  lead  ?  Or  are  we  giving  first 
place  to  the  manhood  of  us,  the  soul  within  us  and 
the  God  above  us,  and  holding  popularity,  ambition 
and  success  subject  to  nobleness  of  life  and  righteous- 
ness of  standard,  cleanness  of  conscience  and  fulness 
of  service  ? 

Again ;  in  the  interpretation  of  the  world's  calami- 
ties, disasters  and  distresses  how  prone  men  are  to 
displace  the  simple,  salutary  and  sane  in  their  ex- 
planations, and  to  bring  forth  the  involved,  the  un- 
reasonable and  the  unjust  —  to  place  last  things  first. 
We  have  made  some  progress  here.  !N'o  longer  do 
men  view  disaster  or  epidemic  as  of  old.  These 
things  once  ascribed  to  the  wrath  of  the  gods,  and 
later  to  the  anger  of  the  one  God,  are  now  interpreted 
by  man  as  the  results  of  his  own  negligence  of  God's 


The  Call  to  Readjustment  49 

great  protective  laws.  And  so  we  meet  epidemic 
and  offset  calamity  by  wise  provisions,  diligent  teach- 
ing and  faithful  prevention.  Yet  with  the  example 
of  Home's  burning,  in  the  distant  age  of  Nero,  we 
have  waited  to  our  day  to  put  our  responsibility  in 
this  concern  where  it  belongs;  and  even  then  it  re- 
quired the  tragedy  of  an  Iroquois  Theater,  a  Slocum 
disaster  and  a  Titanic  tragedy  to  teach  us  that  we 
have  no  right  to  subject  ourselves  or  others  to  great 
danger  and  then  charge  to  God's  account  the  suffer- 
ing caused  by  our  heedlessness,  stupidity  or  selfish- 
ness. We  are  learning  here  to  put  first  things  first, 
and  no  longer  to  place  the  loving  Father  of  His  own 
human  race  under  the  indictment  of  malicious  power 
or  capricious  cruelty.  We  are  beginning  no  longer 
to  judge  God  as  at  best  an  inexorable  judge,  ready 
to  sentence  His  erring  children  to  eternal  woe.  At 
last  we  are  learning  that  the  highest  and  truest,  the 
only  real  and  the  only  lasting  motive  for  our  service 
of  God  is  the  knowledge  of  God's  unceasing  and 
eternal  love  for  the  world,  inspiring  and  lifting  that 
world  to  love  of  God.  We  are  at  last  beginning  to 
realize  what  the  great  Parrar  preached;  that  "God 
created  us,  not  to  destroy,  not  to  torment,  not  to  take 
vengeance  on,  but  to  save  and  to  save  to  the  utter- 
most from  sin,  from  corruption,  from  that  true 
Gehenna,  which  is  not  a  burning  prison,  but  a  pol- 
luted heart ;  that  Hell  is  a  temper,  not  a  place,  that 
so  long  as  we  are  evil  and  impure  and  unloving,  so 


50  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

long  where  we  are  is  Hell  and  where  Hell  is  there 
we  must  be." 

You  remember  the  story  of  the  demons  in  the 
Gadarenes  who  protested  against  the  approach  of  the 
healing  Christ.  The  demons  of  selfishness  and 
greed  have  imprisoned  the  souls  of  vast  numbers  of 
Christian  men  and  women.  Sometimes  the  prison 
is  a  stock  market,  sometimes  a  small  office,  some- 
times a  factory,  sometimes  a  nation.  When  the 
gospel  of  Christ  seeks  entrance  to  drive  out  selfish- 
ness and  restore  to  sanity  and  self-mastery  they  cry 
out  like  the  Gadarene  demoniacs  "  What  have  we  to 
do  with  Thee  ?  "  "  Let  the  Church  hold  to  the  Gos- 
pel "  they  say.  What  they  mean  is  to  let  the  Church 
withhold  the  full  Gospel.  Again  they  cry  "  Let  the 
Church  administer  the  sacraments,"  blind  to  Christ's 
condemnation  of  those  who  take  the  sacrament  as  a 
substitute  for  service,  a  false  appropriation  of  the 
supreme  symbol  of  unselfishness,  sacrifice  and  dedi- 
cation to  serve  others.  "  Let  the  Church  preach 
Christ  and  Him  crucified !  "  Let  her  do  so  and  she 
will  not  repeat  an  indictment  two  thousand  years 
old.  She  will  picture  to  our  lives  of  social  selfish- 
ness that  scene  of  material  conflict  where  the  Master 
announced  that  "  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone." 
She  will  make  the  central  text  of  her  preaching  the 
command,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thy- 
seH." 

She  will  repeat  His  parable  of  industrial  greed 


The  Call  to  Readjustment  51 

where  a  certain  man  recounted  his  accumulated  pos- 
sessions and  laid  plans  for  their  increase.  She  will 
point  to  His  story  of  warning  to  every  age  and  every 
individual  in  the  eternal  parable  of  Dives  and 
Lazarus.  She  will  recall  His  praise  of  a  certain  poor 
widow.  She  will  repeat  the  sermon  He  preached 
with  the  whip  of  small  cords.  She  will  sound 
men's  ceaseless  struggle  to  get  and  to  save  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount.  "  Take  no  anxious  thought  for  the 
things  of  self."  "  Seek  ye  first  the  Kingdom  of 
God."  She  will  paint  in  every  office  of  industry  and 
every  home  of  selfishness  where  Christ  is  left  outside 
the  portrait  of  the  apostate  apostle  who  sold  his 
Master  for  more  money.  She  will  make  it  the  por- 
trait not  of  Judas  the  hero  of  the  hurrying  crowd, 
the  successful  speculator  in  blood,  but  of  Judas  alone 
with  his  remorseful  soul  and  his  money.  She  will 
point  to  the  fact  that  even  one  capable  of  doing  this 
sought  to  annul  the  bargain,  and  failing,  threw  down 
the  money  and  took  his  own  life  as  not  being  worth 
living.  She  will  challenge  every  professing  Chris- 
tian to  answer  this  question: 

"  O  did  we  live  the  Christian  Creed, 
Did  we  feel  the  blade  of  human  need, 
Would  millions  of  men  be  underfed 
And  others  surfeited  with  bread? 

"  Not  till  the  meanest  has  his  place 
In  the  onward  march  of  the  human  race, 
Not  till  the  lowest  has  his  right 
To  love  and  honor  and  food  and  light: 


52  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

No  man  a  master  and  none  a  slave 

Shall  the  world  be  saved  as  He  meant  to  save." 

The  truthful  preaching  of  Jesus  Christ  is  just 
exactly  what  the  modern  business  world  needs  to 
apply  to  itself.  It  is  just  what  every  one  of  us  needs, 
however  small  our  possessions.  If  "  money "  and 
"  property  "  and  "  business  "  are  terms  used  to  in- 
terpret, it  is  because  they  are  the  terms  into  which 
men  have  packed  that  selfishness  and  cruelty  and  un- 
brotherliness  which  contradict  and  impede  the  Gos- 
pel of  Christ.  The  blame  is  not  on  the  Church  that 
preaches  but  on  the  men  who  make  such  preaching 
necessary  —  even  in  the  twentieth  century  of  Chris- 
tianity. "  The  social  menace  of  our  day  is  the  direct 
responsibility  of  those  who  have  enthroned  the  mam- 
mon of  selfishness  in  the  place  of  the  Fatherhood  of 
God  as  the  providence  of  progress."  God  sent  the 
world's  Redeemer  to  redeem ;  just  that  and  all  that  — 
and  it  means  to  redeem  not  only  all  we  are,  but  all 
we  own  or  use  or  make,  from  the  crime  of  injustice 
and  the  tyranny  of  selfishness.  !Not  alone  as  a  com- 
fort and  compensation  to  the  poor  and  unblessed  but 
as  a  warning  and  a  way  of  redemption  to  the  well- 
to-do  and  the  blessed  comes  Christ's  message  to-day : 
"  Man  shalt  not  live  by  bread  alone." 

Jesus  Christ  is  the  Savior  of  all  society  or  His 
own  teachings  are  false  and  His  whole  life  is  a  fail- 
ure. On  all  sides  we  are  facing  the  challenge  that 
"  until  the  Church  undertakes  Christ's  mission  of 


The  Call  to  Readjustment  53 

social  redemption  it  but  trifles  and  toys  with  the 
problem  of  the  world's  salvation."  Not  alone  in  the 
funeral  service  over  the  dead  but  above  the  tragic 
greed  of  living  men  we  need  to  pronounce  the  truth 
that  "  we  brought  nothing  into  this  world  and  it  is 
certain  we  can  carry  nothing  out."  As  Christ  used 
His  own  material  temptation  for  a  tremendous 
spiritual  lesson,  so  He  uses  the  material  powers  of 
to-day  to  fulfil  a  divine  end.  That  end  can  be 
plainly  seen  by  those  who  have  "  eyes  to  see."  The 
very  selfishness  of  mammon  is  teaching  the  reality 
of  our  responsibility.  It  is  teaching  it  by  increasing 
the  problem  of  poverty  which  is  stirring  the  hearts 
of  the  people,  rousing  the  forces  of  unrest  and  filling 
the  world's  printing  presses  with  works  on  social  sci- 
ence and  industrial  reforms. 

We  are  catching  the  first  notes  of  a  movement  that 
will  soon  become  so  fundamental  and  universal  that 
no  individual  or  class  can  escape.  We  are  seeing  the 
first  beginnings  in  the  nation's  income  and  inherit- 
ance tax;  in  great  national  gatherings  to  study  and 
defend  human  rights  above  property  rights;  in  the 
volumes  on  social  and  industrial  justice  pouring 
from  the  press ;  in  the  rising  tide  of  human  sympathy 
whose  first  expression  is  social  service  and  whose 
final  purpose  is  fundamental  and  comprehensive  jus- 
tice. It  is  seen  in  the  masses  of  men  in  brotherhoods 
and  the  forces  of  the  class  conscious  in  organized 
battle  with  the  powers  of  unearned  and  unbrotherly 


54  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

privilege.     It  is  at  his  own  peril  if  any  man  or  class 
of  men  seek  to  live  selfishly  and  to  preach  selfishness 
in  the  day  that  is  now  upon  us.     "  There  is  nothing 
hidden  that  shall  not  be  revealed"  and  that  soon. 
Ashamed  and  self-condemned  will  those  men  stand 
who  are  found  seeking  sustenance  and  strength  from 
the  hard  stones  of  material  possessions.     They  will 
know  themselves  even  as  they  are  known  and  they 
will  not  dare  to  call  themselves  Christians  —  without 
knowing  also  that  they  stand  condemned  and  re- 
jected of  men  as  well  as  by  Jesus  Christ.     That  day 
will  not  come  to  its  close  without  struggle  between 
man  and  man,  between  a  man  and  his  own  contend- 
ing selfishness.     Happy  and  wise  are  they  who  enter 
the  struggle  without  delay  and  without  compromise, 
on  the  side  and  in  the  power  of  the  Christ  who  waged 
the  conflict  in  the  wilderness  and  won  the  final  vic- 
tory through  His   own  crucifixion.     It  will  mean 
crucifixion  of  some  sort  to  every  one.     Which  shall 
it  be  for  us  —  the  crucifixion  of  the  highest  or  of  the 
lowest  —  of  our  real  selves  or  of  our  cultivated  self- 
ishness ?     Let  us  not  deceive  ourselves  for,  as  another 
puts  it  "  Fearful  things  may  yet  come  to  pass  upon 
the  earth,  while  storms  of  social  strife  may  hide  the 
face  of  God  awhile  from  human  faith,  but  as  the  sea 
of  historic  troubles  beats  upon  the  systems  of  man, 
it  will  carve  out  new  harbors  of  hope  for  the  worn  and 
hopeless   and  bear  the  race  to  new  continents   of 
promise.     And  through  the  fiercest  storms  of  human 


The  Call  to  Readjustment  55 

passions,  there  will  come  that  same  Jesus  who  stilled 
the  waves  of  His  native  sea,  to  speak  the  commanding 
word  that  shall  hush  the  social  strife  in  the  sea  of 
perfect  justice." 

"  Till  about  1870  individualism  had  the  advantage  in  this 
conflict;  but  near  the  middle  of  the  century  collectivism  began 
to  gain  on  individualism,  and  during  the  last  third  of  the 
centuiy  collectivism  won  decided  advantages  over  the  opposing 
principle. 

"  During  precisely  this  period  of  growing  collectivism  the 
churches  gained  on  the  population  at  a  slackening  rate.  It 
is  not  the  actual  growth  of  the  churches  which  is  significant 
in  this  connection,  but  their  growth  as  compared  with  that 
of  the  population;  and  during  the  last  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  the  rate  of  gain  of  the  Protestant  churches  in  the 
United  States  was  only  one-fourth  as  great  as  during  the 
first  half;  during  the  twenty  years  from  1880  to  1900  it  was 
only  one  quarter  as  great  as  it  had  been  during  the  preceding 
thirty  years;  while  during  the  ten  years  from  1890  to  1900  it 
was  only  one-third  as  great  as  during  the  preceding  decade. 
That  is,  during  the  last  ten  years  of  the  century  the  rate  of 
gain  on  the  population  was  only  one-sixteenth  as  great  as 
during  the  first  half  of  the  century.  We  must  not  be  sur- 
prised to  learn  therefore  that  from  1900  to  1910  there  was 
no  gain  whatever  on  the  population;  and  each  year  since  then 
there  has  been  a  slight  loss. 

"  This  significant  phenomenon  is  not  peculiar  to  any  com- 
munion or  to  any  country  in  Christendom.  The  relaxing  hold 
of  the  churches  on  the  people  not  only  in  this  country  but  in 
Great  Britain  and  in  Continental  Europe  was  observed  as 
early  as  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  From  1851  to 
1891  attendance  on  the  Presbyterian  churches  of  Scotland  de- 
creased 180,000.  That  is,  while  the  population  increased  39.3 
per  cent,  in  forty  years,  church  attendance  decreased  22.4  per 
cent.  Similar  facts  might  be  given  from  England,  also  from 
the  Continent. 

"  The  industrial  revolution,  during  the  past  generation,  has 
been  greater  in  Germany  than  anywhere  else  in  Europe  and 
the  famous  Dr.  Stocker  of  Berlin  declares  that  '  nowhere  has 


56  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

so  great  a  part  of  the  people  broken  with  the  Church. 
Protestantism  is  sick,  sick  unto  death.'  On  February  22,  1914, 
less  than  two  per  cent,  of  the  population  were  in  attendance 
at  the  churches  of  Berlin  and  Charlottenburg ;  and  of  those 
present  three  quarters  were  women  and  children. 

"  The  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  Europe  has  in  large 
measure  lost  her  influence.  The  French  Government  has 
broken  with  her;  Italy  defies  her;  Portugal  repudiates  her 
and  even  Spain  has  left  her. 

*'  The  same  remarkable  change  is  taking  place  in  the  Greek 
Church  of  Russia. 

"  The  pagan  world  is  not  exempt  from  this  cosmic  move- 
ment. Wherever  modern  thought  and  the  influence  of  the  new 
social  spirit  have  gone,  all  individualistic  religions  —  Islam, 
Buddhism  and  Brahmanism  —  have  been  loosening  their  hold. 

"  All  this  is  not  occasion  for  alarm  but  for  congratulation ; 
not  a  sign  of  retrogression  but  of  progress.  All  pagan  re- 
ligions and  Islam  are  individualistic  in  spirit  as  well  as  form; 
their  object  is  to  prepare  men  for  the  other  life;  they  will, 
therefore,  gradually  disintegrate  as  the  new  social  spirit  and 
the  conditions  of  the  new  collective  civilization  prevail.  The 
Christianity  of  Christ  is  social  in  spirit,  though  it  has  been 
fettered  by  an  individualistic  interpretation.  Its  social  spirit 
is  its  vital  principle  which  has  kept  alive  amid  adverse  con- 
ditions. It  is  now  struggling  to  free  itself  from  its  ancient 
bondage  and  to  gain  liberty  to  grow  in  the  favorable  soil 
which  the  new  civilization  is  creating  all  over  the  world."  i 


1  Josiah  Strong. 


IS  THE  CHUKCH  AFEAID? 


*  *       A       MAI^  was  walking  througli  the  woods  in 


l\ 


springtime.  The  air  was  thrilling  and 
throbbing  with  the  passion  of  little 
hearts,  with  the  love-wooing  and  the  parent  pride  of 
the  birds.  But  the  man  never  noticed  that  there 
was  a  parent  bird  in  the  woods.  He  was  a  botanist 
and  was  looking  for  plants. 

"  A  man  was  walking  through  the  streets  of  a  citv, 
pondering  the  problems  of  wealth  and  national  well- 
being.  He  saw  a  child  sitting  on  a  curbstone  and 
crying.  He  met  children  at  play.  He  saw  a  young 
mother  with  her  child  and  an  old  man  with  his  grand- 
child. But  it  never  occurred  to  him  that  little  chil- 
dren are  the  foundation  of  society,  a  chief  motive; 
power  in  economic  effort,  the  most  influential  teach- 
ers, the  source  of  the  purest  pleasures,  the  embodi 
ment  of  form  and  color  and  grace.  The  man  had 
never  had  a  child  and  his  eyes  were  not  opened. 

"A  man  read  through  the  ISTew  Testament.  He 
felt  no  vibration  of  social  hope  in  the  preaching  of 
John  the  Baptist  and  in  the  shout  of  the  crowd  when 
Jesus  entered  Jerusalem.  He  caught  no  revolution- 
ary note  in  the  Book  of  Eevelations.     The  social 

67  , 


58  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

movement  had  not  yet  reached  him.  Jesus  knew 
human  nature  when  He  reiterated :  '  He  that  hath 
ears  to  hear,  let  him  hear.'  "  ^ 

Shall  the  Militant  Church  he  content  to  save  the 
separate  soul  and  afraid  to  withstand  the  systems  of 
organized  evil? 

Is  it  the  Church's  duty  to  protect  the  ninety  and 
nine  as  well  as  to  save  the  one  ?  Shall  we  make  the 
Church  a  haven  for  the  few  who  seek  her  shelter  and 
refuse  to  rescue  the  multitude  on  whom  the  Master 
had  compassion  ? 

We  Americans  talk  of  the  suffering  and  the  bru- 
tality which  challenged  us  to  war.  Do  we  forget  the 
tragedy  and  suffering  for  which  we  are  responsible 
at  home,  under  the  very  spires  of  our  churches  ? 

Let  those  who  dwell  on  the  terrible  waste  and  cost 
of  war  answer  their  responsibility  for  hours  of  waste, 
opportunities  lost,  money  extravagantly  expended  or 
selfishly  extorted  not  only  in  the  face  of  widespread 
poverty  but  from  the  labors  and  lives  of  the  poor 
themselves. 

Let  those  who  talk  of  war's  cruelties  see  to  it  that 
none  suffer  through  their  cold  and  calculating  pur- 
pose of  gain  and  advancement  in  business,  politics 
or  ecclesiastical  preferment.  Four  colossal  and 
costly  cathedrals  are  in  process  of  erection  or  comple- 
tion in  four  Eastern  cities  within  five  hours  reach  of 
one  another.     In  those  same  cities  the  extent  of  ig- 

1  Rauschenbusch. 


Is  the  Church  Afraid?  59 

norance,  poverty  and  preventable  disease  is  beyond 
calculation.  Under  these  conditions  is  not  the 
Church  robbing  God's  poor  in  God's  own  name  ?  To 
build  a  ten  million  dollar  cathedral  in  the  presence 
of  slums  and  widespread  poverty  is  not  a  tribute  but 
an  insult  to  Jesus  Christ. 

Let  those  who  comment  on  the  loss  of  life  in  war 
think  of  the  thousands  in  their  city,  perhaps  in  their 
employ,  who  have  lost  all  of  life  save  drudgery  and 
poverty  and  ill-paid  labor. 

The  evils  of  war  follow  the  hot  passion  of  angered 
nations.  What  of  the  evils  before  our  faces  —  under 
our  hands  —  where  the  innocent  and  helpless  are  the 
victims  of  our  cowardice,  our  greed  and  our  selfish- 
ness? 

1^0  thinking  man  denies  that  moral  issues  are  in- 
volved in  economic  laws.  They  are  more  often 
rooted  in  immoral  economic  soil.  Shall  the  Church 
permit  multitudes  to  feed  on  the  things  that  poison 
body  and  soul,  fearful  lest  she  stain  her  sacred  hands 
with  the  secular  ?  It  is  not  so  much  a  question  of  the 
Church's  right  as  of  the  Church's  duty.  It  is  not  a 
matter  of  polity  but  of  principle.  It  is  not  optional 
—  it  is  mandatory.  Jesus  Christ  did  not  refuse  to 
express  Himself  when  the  economic  and  the  secular 
were  intruded  into  the  realm  of  the  moral  and  the 
spiritual  by  the  "  money-changers  " ;  nor  did  He  rest 
content  solely  with  expressing  His  views.  He  took 
up  the  "  secular  "  piece  of  twisted  cord  intended  for 


60  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

"  economic  use  "  and  with  it  whipped  His  condemna- 
tion into  their  consciences.  He  not  only  drove  home 
His  truth  —  He  drove  out  their  traffic.  He  not  only 
broke  forth  into  righteous  anger  —  He  broke  up  their 
unrighteous  business. 

The  Church  does  not  hesitate  to  enter  the  province 
of  the  secular  in  order  to  secure  her  own  property 
rights.  The  Church  is  constantly  dealing  with  eco- 
nomic problems  which  affect  the  support  of  her  minis- 
try and  her  institutions.  If  she  does  these  things 
for  herself  and  her  own  interests  and  is  unwilling  to 
do  as  much  for  human  welfare,  she  stands  openly 
convicted  of  utter  selfishness.  How  much  more 
earnestly  and  valiantly  must  she  contend  when 
human  life  is  unjustly  overtaxed,  when  men  and 
women  are  crushed  under  unjust  systems  and  little 
children  are  robbed  of  their  birthright  of  health  and 
happiness  and  liberty  ? 

And  the  modern  minister  ?  It  is  possible  for  him 
to  be  comfortable  in  the  petty  life  of  social  servility 
to  the  so-called  "  leading  members  "  of  his  parish. 
It  is  possible  for  him  to  keep  an  undisturbed  heart 
by  living  in  the  charmed  and  charming  circle  of  the 
well-content.  He  may  not  feel  the  heart-ache  of  the 
many  if  he  rest  his  feet  beneath  mahogany  tables  and 
feast  frequently  in  the  homes  of  plenty. 

But  if  he  seek  to  follow  the  path  His  Master  made, 
his  heart  will  surge  with  a  mighty  sorrow  at  the 
sight  of  the  Jerusalem  of  to-day  that  does  not  know 


Is  the  Church  Afraid?  61 

its  King,  that  serves  lesser  gods  for  greater  profits, 
that  replaces  the  sign  of  the  cross  with  the  dollar- 
mark,  that  gives  more  to  recreation  than  to  religion, 
more  to  self-indulgence  than  to  human  service,  more 
to  current  fashions  than  to  the  eternal  Christ ! 

Practical  Brotherhood  and  not  Patronizing  Benev- 
olence is  the  way  of  approach  out  of  the  present 
crisis.  It  is  our  new  opportunity  to  learn  an  old 
lesson  —  as  old  as  the  answer  to  the  question  of  Cain : 
"  Am  I  my  brother's  keeper  ?  "  The  day  has  come 
when  men  shall  be  taught  that  the  contribution  for 
charity  does  not  "  cover  the  multitude  of  sins ''  com- 
mitted by  competition  and  greed. 

The  hour  has  struck  when  industry  and  capital 
must  take  to  themselves  the  command  "  Thou  shalt 
not  steal "  and  then  return  a  pittance  of  the  stolen 
profits  in  benevolences.  The  time  is  here  for  the 
man  who  professes  religion  to  burn  into  his  con- 
science this  message  of  God !  "  What  doth  the  Lord 
require  of  thee  but  to  do  justly,  to  love  mercy  and  to 
walk  humbly  with  thy  God '' —  remembering  that 
doing  justice  comes  first. 

The  final  solution  will  not  come  until  we  forge  our 
industrial  system,  as  well  as  form  our  individual 
lives,  by  the  precept  of  Jesus  Christ :  "  Thou  shalt 
love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself  " !  The  hearts  of  the 
heavy-laden  and  the  growing  forces  of  discontent 
eagerly  await  the  answer  of  the  Church.  The  God 
of  Justice  and  the  Lord  of  Love —  They  also  wait. 


62  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

MARY  PHAGAN  PASSES  JU3XJMENT 

"  You  care  a  lot  about  me,  you  men  of  Georgia,  now  that  I 

am  dead. 
\ou  have  spent  thousands  of  dollars  trying  to  learn  who  mu- 
tilated my  body. 
You  have  tilled  the  columns  of  your  newspapers  with  the  story 

of  my  wrong. 
You  have  broken  into  a  prison  and  murdered  a  man  that  I 

might  be  avenged, 
But  why  did  you  not  care  for  me  when  I  was  alive? 
I  was  but  a  child,  but  you  shut  me  out  of  the  daylight. 
You   held   me   within   four    walls    watching   a   machine   that 

crashed  through  the  air. 
Endlessly  watching  a  knife  as  it  cut  a  piece  of  wood. 
Noise  fills  the  place — noise,  dust  and  the  smell  of  oil. 
I  wish  some  of  the  thousands  of  dollars  that  you  spent  on  the 

trial  might  have  kept  me  in  school. 
A  real  school  —  the  kind  you  build  for  the  rich, 
I  worked  through  the  hot  August  days 
When  you  were  bossing  the  girls  or  shooting  birds. 
Or  lounging  in  doorways  cursing  the  nigger; 
And  you  never  paid  me  enough  to  buy  a  pretty  dress. 
Why  did  you  despise  me  living  and  yet  love  me  so  now? 
I  think  I  know.     It  is  like  what  the  preacher  told  me  about 

Christ: 
People  hated  Him  when  He  was  alive, 
But  when  He  was  dead  they  killed  man  after  man  for  His 

sake."  1 

The  Church  must  teach  that  selfish  accumulation 
and  self-indulgence  can  find  no  atonement  in  the 
substitution  of  spasmodic  subscriptions  to  charity. 
There  is  no  charity  in  the  act  of  a  corporation  that 
discharges  or  underpays  employees  in  order  to  amass 
profits  and  out  of  these  profits  contributes  a  check  to 
help  the  needy.  Their  "  way  of  business  ''  is  one  of 
the  main  causes  of  poverty  and  unemployment,  l^o 
1  Mary  White  Ovington  in  the  New  Republic. 


Is  the  Church  Afraid?  63 

private  exponent  of  daily  injustice  can  be  made  a 
saint  bj  his  response  to  the  pressure  of  a  public  ap- 
peal. The  problem  of  the  unemployed  will  never  be 
solved  until  the  rights  of  the  employed  are  settled; 
until  the  worker  becomes  a  partner  in  the  business  of 
which  he  is  a  part. 

The  aroused  public  conscience  will  not  feed  on  the 
false  philosophy  of  the  comfortable  conservative  who 
meets  every  such  crisis  with  the  old  cry  that  the 
thriftlessness  of  the  poor  is  responsible  for  their  ig- 
norance, poverty  and  unemployment.  What  has 
made  them  thriftless  ?  There  is  abundant  and  scien- 
tific proof  that  poverty  and  unemployment  are  among 
the  first  causes  of  final  thriftlessness.  The  facts  will 
prove  as  another  source  the  underfed  bodies  and 
*^  deadly  discouraged  "  lives  of  vast  numbers  of  work- 
ers. The  conscience  of  the  community  will  not  toler- 
ate the  spirit  of  the  self-righteous  who  calmly  charge 
Almighty  God  with  the  crime  of  an  arbitrary  division 
of  His  people  into  the  fortunate  and  favored  and  the 
unfortunate  and  wretched. 

There  are  those  who  propose  the  expediency  of 
delay  until  things  become  normal ;  the  waiting  for  a 
calm  and  a  "more  convenient  season."  Against 
them  stands  the  verdict  of  the  past.  All  experience 
proves  that  invariably  reaction  and  inaction  set  in 
when  the  normal  succeeds  the  abnormal;  that  the 
time  to  regulate  is  when  things  are  irregular;  that 
one  day  of  uncorrected  evil  may  fill  to  over-flowing 


64  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

the  cup  of  misery  in  the  lives  of  many,  that  a  "  more 
convenient  season  "  breeds  a  callous  conscience  and 
a  negative  conservatism.  All  history  shows  that  hu- 
manity has  paid  heavy  penalties  for  the  price  of  post-:, 
ponement;  that  the  object-lesson  of  a  present  crisis  is 
essential  to  all  great  reforms ;  that  human  rights  and 
liberty  have  never  been  won  by  academic  discussion ; 
that  periods  of  high  enthusiasm  and  noble  passion 
have  started  the  upward  movements  and  molded  the 
mighty  men  of  history.  This  is  a  fact  —  a  living, 
vital,  pleading  human  fact :  —  For  every  modern 
Dives  there  are  literally  thousands  in  the  state  of  Laz- 
arus. And  here  is  the  next  outstanding  and  condemn- 
ing fact :  In  the  center  of  all  this  poverty  is  abun- 
dance of  wealth  —  in  the  hands  of  the  few.  Within 
the  vast  circle  of  human  struggle,  of  want  and  suffer- 
ing, they  hold  their  huge  bank  accounts,  transact  their 
"  Big  Business  "  and  live  in  ever  enlarging  luxury. 
The  fear  of  facts  is  moral  cowardice.  The  sup- 
pression of  truth  is  spiritual  suicide.  The  repres- 
sion of  liberty  of  speech  is  the  foundation  of  injus- 
tice and  the  origin  of  anarchy.  With  the  recognition 
of  these  truths  the  Church  must  begin.  To  those  who 
seek  the  sanction  of  the  sacred,  she  will  give  the  motto 
of  the  Master :  "  Ye  shall  know  the  Truth  — r  and 
the  Truth  shall  make  you  Free."  She  will  find  her 
texts  standing  out  on  almost  every  page  of  the  Bible. 
She  will  find  her  message  in  the  answer  compelled - 
from  God  by  the  guileful  question  of  guilty  Cain: 


Is  the  Church  Afraid?  65 

"  Att]  I  my  brother's  keeper  ? "  It  is  the  corner- 
Btone  of  the  Law  of  the  Propliets.  It  is  the  heart  of 
the  Gospel  of  the  Christ  who  connnanded :  "  Thou 
shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself  "  and  whose  final 
judgment  is  '^  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  not  done  it  unto 
the  least  of  these  ye  have  not  done  it  unto  me." 

The  context  of  her  preaching  will  be  the  life  in  the 
midst  of  which  we  live,  for  which  we  bear  inescapable 
responsibility  and  to  which  we  make  our  contribution 
for  good  or  evil.  Her  call  will  be  the  cry  of  human 
suffering,  in  the  face  of  which  her  Master  never  re- 
mained silent  or  inactive.  She  will  not  be  content 
to  discuss  the  plight  but  to  consider  the  rights  of  the 
oppressed  and  submerged,  the  underpaid  and  over- 
worked members  of  her  community.  They  are  here 
now  —  these  women  in  want  and  anxiety  while  we 
remain  in  ease,  these  little  children  suffering  with 
hunger  in  stifling  and  unchanging  environment, 
while  we  and  ours  have  warmth  and  food,  these  multi- 
tudes compelled  to  do  violence  to  Christ's  command 
by  taking  anxious  thought  for  every  morrow. 

The  situation  even  before  1914  and  the  subsequent 
abnormal  world  conditions  may  be  simply  stated. 
While  mighty  vessels  bore  vast  cargoes  of  food  and 
clothing  out  to  sell  for  large  profits  to  those  of  other 
lands;  while  our  harvests  were  the  most  plentiful 
ever  known;  while  there  was  abundance  of  food, 
clothing,  fuel  and  wealth,  yet  multitudes  were  suf- 
fering for  the  very  necessities  of  life.     To  an  audi- 


66  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

ence  of  thinking  minds  and  living  consciences  the 
situation  needs  only  to  be  stated.  It  is  all-important 
that  we  realize  that  we  are  not  here  as  the  guardians 
of  a  Christian  almshouse,  moved  by  a  benevolent 
compassion  and  a  patronizing  charity.  We  are  not 
even  here  under  the  compulsion  of  being  our  broth- 
er's keeper.     We  are  here  as  our  brother's  brother. 

If  our  minds  are  open  to  the  full  truth  we  shall 
doubtless  discover  a  still  heavier  responsibility  rest- 
ing on  us  to  solve  the  terrible  situation  of  our  suffer- 
ing fellow-men.  Briefly  and  bluntly  stated,  the  full 
testimony  of  all  the  underlying  facts  may  prove  our 
guilt.  If  present  conditions  are  due  to  the  vicious- 
ness  of  an  economic  system  by  which  we  profit,  the 
inefficiency  or  corruption  of  political  conditions  which 
we  permit,  the  culpability  of  Christian  employers 
and  the  deliberate  detachment  of  the  pulpit  from  the 
public  welfare,  just  in  so  far  are  we  direct  factors 
in  the  creation  of  the  condition  which  calls  to  us. 
We  may  find  that  the  unfortunate  and  suffering  are 
not  only  our  brothers  but  our  victims.  Bearing  this 
in  mind  we  shall  not  only  be  open  to  new  light  but 
ready  for  a  new  conscience. 

Men  are  prone  to  find  an  alibi  in  the  laissez  f  aire 
argument  that  such  conditions  are  the  inevitable  re- 
currence of  epochs  of  business  irregularity.  We  are 
told,  that  history  proves  that  such  epochs  have  been 
periodic  in  the  past  and  will  continue  to  occur  in 
regular  cycles.     It  is  the  same  argument  that  was 


Is  the  Church  Afraid?  67 

once  used  in  the  face  of  periodic  epidemics  of  dis- 
ease. Imagine  the  use  of  this  argument  to-day  in 
the  face  of  the  recurrence  of  an  epidemic  of  small- 
pox or  yellow  fever.  But  while  small-pox  is  no  re- 
specter of  persons,  there  are  those  who  feel  secure  in 
periods  of  poverty  and  unemployment.  It  is  by 
these  that  the  philosophy  of  a  false  confidence  and  a 
shallow  optimism  is  preached.  They  ask  us  to 
"  prophesy  smooth  things  "  bid  us  "  take  no  anxious 
thought "  and  remind  us  that  "  all's  well  that  ends 
well."  We  must  not  underestimate  the  power  of 
their  campaign  of  suppression,  under  the  guise  of  an 
optimism  that  is  based  on  self-interest,  sustained  by 
solicitude  for  their  own  security  and  fed  by  the  fear 
of  a  full  disclosure  of  their  responsibility  for  existing 
conditions. 

The  next  fallacy  we  must  face  is  the  honest  belief 
that  the  present  re-employment  of  many  thousands 
who  were  out  of  work  in  1914  indicates  that  the 
crisis  is  passed.  A  great  many  people  sincerely 
think  that  the  situation  is  no  longer  acute.  Let  us 
look  a  little  deeper.  Take  the  thousands  put  to  work 
again  after  months  of  idleness.  Many  of  them  have 
made  sacrifices  and  incurred  debts  that  will  mortgage 
their  future  for  years  to  come.  'Now  that  they  are 
back  at  work  they  live  in  daily  dread  of  the  master 
stroke  or  "  periodic  depression  "  that  any  moment 
may  send  them  back  to  idleness.  From  authentic 
sources  we  know  that  many  thousands  are  out  of 


68  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

health  and  therefore  out  of  work  to-day,  that  multi- 
tudes are  being  aided  by  the  public  charities  of  our 
cities  and  that  every  church  and  benevolent  organiza- 
tion in  the  land  is  being  taxed  to  the  utmost. 

Wholly  aside  from  the  call  of  human  need,  we  face 
the  daily  increasing  danger  of  enlarging  the  com- 
pany of  the  discouraged  which  is  steadily  recruiting 
the  army  of  the  dependents.  Before  the  war  Eng- 
land had  a  host  of  900,000  in  the  permanent  pauper 
class.  How  many  America  has  we  do  not  know  but 
when  we  do  learn  we  shall  doubtless  stand  appalled. 
If  for  no  other  reason  we  bear  a  responsibility  to 
check  the  contribution  to  permanent  pauperism  added 
each  day  by  delay  in  solving  the  immediate  problem. 
While  capitalists  in  close  conference  and  labor  leaders 
behind  closed  doors  discuss  their  separate  grievances 
and  plans,  it  is  the  Church's  splendid  opportunity  to 
bring  all,  capitalists,  laborers,  students  of  economics 
and  social  experts,  to  the  higher  ground  of  a  great 
and  living  brotherhood,  where  a  common  conscience 
shall  transcend  class  prejudice  and  human  welfare 
shall  supersede  separate  interests. 

The  time  has  come  for  the  Church  at  large  to  make 
the  welfare  of  humanity  in  every  sphere  and  class  of 
life  as  much  her  concern  as  it  was  of  the  Master  who 
stopped  preaching  and  fed  the  hungry  bodies  of  the 
multitude.  We  shall  ask  the  Church  to  answer  the 
question :  What  would  Christ  be  doing  if  He  were 
here  to-day  ?     Would  He  not  be  with  those  who  have 


Is  the  Church  Afraid?  69 

least  and  suffer  most  ?  Would  He  meet  their  suffer- 
ing with  the  statement  that  His  Kingdom  is  not  of 
this  world  or  would  He  still  "  have  compassion  "  ? 
If  in  ministering  to  human  wants,  He  found  Himself 
facing  the  harrier  of  economic  and  social  injustice 
would  He  say  to  the  victim  "  I  am  sorry  hut  my  realm 
is  the  spiritual  and  not  the  secular ''  ?  If  He  found 
the  economic  rooted  in  the  political,  what  would  He 
say  and  do  ?  I  fancy  that  the  next  assemhly  of  our 
national  congress  would  see  a  strange  Figure  rise  in 
their  midst  —  rise  to  plead  for  human  life  and  jus- 
tice, and  if  they  failed  to  heed  His  plea  of  love,  once 
again  His  hand  would  wield  the  scourge  of  small 
cords  to  whip  righteous  condemnation  into  recreant 
consciences. 

They  ask  not  as  burdensome  beggars, 

As  idlers  who  profit  to  shirk; 

They  seek  but  their  right  —  yea  their  justice. 

The  right  to  their  full  share  of  work. 

Will  we  give  it  —  or  not? 

Committing  no  crime,  yet  they  suffer; 
The  treadmill  of  terror  they've  trod. 
They  ask  but  their  share  from  all  others 
Who  have  more  than  enough — Just  God! 
Are  we  Christians —  or  not  ? 


VI 

THE  CALL  TO  THE  MINISTEY 

THE  other  day  one  of  our  millionaires  bouglit 
a  $130,000  set  of  Dickens.  Whatever  other 
deductions  may  arise  in  our  minds  from  re- 
flecting on  such  an  expenditure  by  such  a  type  of 
man  for  a  single  set  of  any  author's  work,  one  de- 
duction is  incontestible.  It  is  that  the  dead  Dickens 
is  yet  alive,  more  alive  than  all  but  a  handful  of  the 
forty  thousand  or  more  living  authors  of  our  day. 
As  to  the  real  source  of  this  power  over  the  hearts 
of  the  people  the  verdict  at  large  is  voiced  by  his 
most  recent  critic  when  he  says  that  Dickens  had 
"  the  key  of  the  streets." 

It  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  those  who  have 
written  on  the  call  to  the  ministry  —  and  these  ap- 
peals have  been  very  many  and  often  very  strong  — 
have  not  possessed  the  key  to  the  heart  of  the  young 
manhood  for  whom  their  appeals  were  written.  They 
have  shut  themselves  in  a  room  with  their  subject 
and  not  mingled  freely  with  their  subjects.  They 
have  proceeded  with  their  great  object,  largely  un^ 
lieeding  their  objectors.  The  "  call ''  has  received 
.almost  exclusive  emphasis,  generally  resulting  in  an 

excluding  effect. 

70 


The  Call  to  the  Ministry  71 

The  writer  lays  no  claim  to  possessing  the  key  to 
young  manhood.  It  is  an  altogether  too  elusive 
thing.  The  general  verdict  is  that  not  even  a  skele- 
ton key  can  be  manufactured  to  fit  the  varied,  unique 
and  complicated  locks  on  the  doors  at  the  threshold 
of  youth,  especially  of  that  miscellaneous  variety 
known  as  the  college  student.  The  nearest  approach 
to  such  a  key  is  to  be  found  in  the  keynote  of  the  life 
of  some"  one  young  man,  if  he  be  of  a  representative 
type.  Therefore  it  is  that  I  would  present  this  ap- 
peal in  the  form  of  an  actual  conversation  with  an 
influential,  popular  and  representative  college  stu- 
dent. He  was  what  we  may  call  a  "  good  fellow," 
with  perhaps  a  little  more  of  the  "  good " —  the 
genuine  —  than  of  the  "fellow.''  After  several 
years  of  thinking  that  he  had  been  thinking  —  an 
epidemic  which  few  escape  —  he  had  at  last  really 
begun  to  think.  From  an  ambition  to  "  see  life 
sanely  and  see  it  whole  "  he  had  risen  to  a  desire  to 
see  life  deeply  and  feel  its  soul,  to  fulfil  his  manhood 
and  not  simply  enlarge  his  brain-cells.  He  had 
looked  long  and  admiringly  at  the  "  natural  law  in 
the  spiritual  world "  and  was  beginning  uncon- 
sciously to  crave  for  a  glimpse  of  the  spiritual  law  in 
the  natural  world.  But  we  shall  let  him  speak  for 
himself.  The  dialogue  may  savor  of  the  Sanford 
and  Merton  style,  but  it  is  the  actual  dialogue  —  it  is 
realism  not  romance. 

"  I  have  been  up  against  it  lately/'  he  began,    ''  I 


72  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

was  raised  in  a  home  of  religion  and  to  a  life  of 
prayer.  Recently,  I  have  been  trying  to  overcome 
some  things  and  to  get  hold  of  things  worth  while.  I 
make  my  resolutions  only  to  break  them.  I  pray  and 
get  no  result  except  the  feeling  that  my  prayers  are 
unreal.  Now  I  am  asking  myself:  '  Why  not  give 
it  all  up  or  why  doesnt  it  mean  more  to  me? '  '* 

"  If  you  didn't  feel  as  you  say  you  feel,  you  would 
be  of  a  very  low  order,  lower  than  the  animals,  for 
even  among  them  effort  and  struggle  and  persever- 
ance are  required.  You  would  be  but  a  bit  of  human 
mechanism  and  your  God  but  a  hired  mechanic  if  a 
sudden  resolution  were  the  means  of  setting  you 
straight  and  every  set  prayer  were  followed  by  a  set 
answer.  Your  very  dissatisfaction  is  the  mark  of  a 
higher  being  who  must  win  his  way,  who  grows  by 
every  obstacle,  is  molded  by  every  test,  is  strength- 
ened by  every  fresh  temptation.  Or  it  may  be  that 
your  dissatisfaction  is  the  outcry  of  your  higher  man- 
hood against  injustice,  neglect  and  a  shallow  and 
spasmodic  support.  It  is  at  a  man's  peril  if  he  does 
not  heed  this  cry  —  for  after  all  it  comes  from  tbe 
soul  behind  the  manhood,  and  the  freedom  and  power 
of  the  soul  is  the  ultimate  mark  of  real  manhood. 
You  have  no  right  to  feed  your  body  and  your  mind 
and  starve  your  soul.  And  you  will  find  no  satis- 
faction in  it.  Again,  your  dissatisfaction  may  be 
the  plea  of  your  life  for  freedom  and  equipment  to 
rise  to  greater  power  than  you  have  ever  thought  it 


The  Call  to  the  Ministry  73 

possible  with  you.  It  may  be  the  revolt  of  your 
inner  self  against  the  outward  occupation  which  you 
have  set  for  your  life-work  and  in  which  your  powers 
of  mind  and  heart  will  be  dwarfed  and  your  real 
manhood  remain  unfulfilled.  You  are  indeed  *  up 
against  it/  for  you  are  up  against  a  big  thing  —  so 
big,  so  important  and  essential  that  you  must  set 
yourself  deliberately,  regularly  and  patiently  to  de- 
velop, equip,  and  evolve  the  very  biggest  and  best 
that  is  in  you.  What  you  need  is  not  to  give  up  the 
small,  spare  time  now  given  and  throw  away  the 
fragments  of  attention  to  your  higher  needs,  not  to 
stop  praying  but  to  pray  more,  with  more  alertness, 
more  purpose  and  more  willingness  to  win  the  best 
of  all  answers  to  prayer,  the  answer  of  a  life  so  in 
touch  and  in  accord  with  the  abiding  laws  and  the 
eternal  principles  of  life  that  it  will  of  its  own  mo- 
mentum surmount  transitory  obstacles  and  temporary 
defeats.  You  must  register  in  the  school  of  the  soul, 
the  university  of  character  —  the  Church  —  and  then 
attend  classes,  not  as  a  stenographer  receiving  dicta- 
tion but  as  a  spiritual  being  receiving  inspiration, 
not  as  a  ^  professor  '  of  religion  but  as  a  ^  confessor ' 
of  your  hidden  weaknesses  and  higher  hopes,  not  for 
minute  directions  from  pulpit  but  for  the  divine 
power  of  the  Christ  who  to-day  as  of  old  enters  into 
the  heart  of  every  life  that  opens  itself  to  His  pres- 


ence." 


Well,  if  I  do  this  and  find  that  it  means  every- 


74}  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

thing  to  me  I  should  feel  it  my  duty  to  make  it  mean 
everything  to  others.  I  should  then  have  to  go  where 
I  can  best  do  this  —  into  the  ministry/* 

"  You  may  be  committing  yourself  by  that  very 
thought.  Forty-nine  out  of  fifty  of  your  fellow- 
men  probably  never  had  the  thought.  The  fact  that 
you  have  it  means  something.  "What  right  have  you 
to  say  that  it  does  not  mean  just  what  you  have  said 
it  may  mean  ?  " 

''/  have  never  let  myself  think  of  that.  In  the 
first  place,  I  have  others  dependent  on  me  and  must 
get  out  and  make  a  living  sufficient  for  them.'' 

"  So  you  are  sure  of  making  early  and  sujfficient 
support  in  business,  law  or  medicine  ?  What  of  the 
thousands  who  do  not?  What  of  those  driven  into 
debt,  dishonesty  or  devious  practises  in  order  to  win 
the  money  which  those  dependent  on  it  would  refuse 
to  touch  if  they  knew  the  methods  that  won  it  ?  This 
is  not  theory  but  the  statement  of  everyday  happen- 
ings in  the  overcrowded  occupations  and  professions. 
I  am  not  seeking  to  argue  away  hardships.  There 
are  plenty  of  them,  and  often  of  the  hardest,  to  be 
borne.  But  since  you  feel  that  you  must  consider 
this  object  first,  I  only  ask  you  to  look  at  it  from 
both  sides." 

^^  But  I'd  want  to  he  the  best  and  rise  to  the  high- 
est place  and  that  wouldn't  do.  That  is  a  base  mo- 
tive." 

"  You  are  admitting  no  fault  peculiar  to  the  min- 


The  Call  to  the  Ministry  75 

istry  and  reprehensible  only  in  the  minister.  It  is 
a  fault  so  subtly  mingled  with  a  virtue  —  that  of 
rendering  the  highest  and  best  service  —  that  it  must 
be  safeguarded  by  the  noblest  motive  and  the  high- 
est environment.  In  the  ministry  you  v^ill  have  the 
safe-guards  without  which  you  may  in  another  oc- 
cupation become  the  victim  of,  instead  of  the  victor 
over,  unworthy  ambition,  with  its  attendant  corrup- 
tion of  principles  and  selfishness  of  heart.'' 

'^  YeSj  that's  so,  hut  I  always  see  the  funny  side 
of  things,  I'd  he  seeing  the  comical  in  the  serious, 
rd  he  tried  for  the  heresy  of  irreverence.'* 

"  Judging  by  the  clergy  you  have  known,  would  you 
say  that  the  ministry  is  the  enemy  of  humor  ? 
Browning  said  that  for  pure  delight  of  real  humor 
he  would  rather  spend  an  hour  in  the  companionship 
of  clergymen  than  in  that  of  any  other  class  of  men. 
One  of  our  University  professors  said  to  a  class  of 
seniors  —  perhaps  because  he  thought  them  old 
enough  to  understand  —  that  '  humor  is  the  first  es- 
sential of  reverence.'  I  haven't  time  to  explain  how 
true  this  is  and  how  it  is  true  —  think  over  it.  But 
remember  the  same  principle  we  saw  in  the  matter 
of  ambition  —  that  the  environment  of  your  life  will 
have  much  to  do  with  the  character  of  your  humor, 
making  it  vulgar,  cynical,  satirical,  profane,  or  ex- 
tracting and  revealing  its  best  flavor,  destroying  the 
contaminating  atmosphere  of  low-minded  suggestive- 
ness.     There  are  not  a  few  men  whose  lives  have 


76  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

suffered  from  the  effect  of  an  atmosphere  which  has 
made  them  the  victims  of  the  worst  forms  —  or 
rather  perversions  —  of  humor,  in  whose  lives  and 
therefore  on  whose  tongues  and  pens,  the  pure  and 
the  divine  are  objects  of  degrading  witticisms.  They 
are  more  in  number  than  the  two  modern  writers  for 
a  restricted  circle,  the  one  of  whom  was  forced  by 
public  opinion  to  cancel  lectures  in  some  of  our  most 
progressive  cities,  the  other  of  whom  in  declining  an 
invitation  to  America  allowed  his  humor  to  dictate 
a  sentence  which  was  either  an  insult  to  American 
womanhood  or  an  admission  that  he  was  capable  of 
attracting  only  the  demi-monde." 

"  That  may  all  he  true,  hut  I  know  I  am  not 
fitted  hy  temperament,  life  or  talent  to  he  a  min- 
ister/^ 

"  Of  course  you  are  not  fitted.  The  question  is, 
Are  you  willing  to  be  fitted  ?  Long  ago  there  was  a 
youth  reared  in  soft  luxury,  tongue-tied  in  speech, 
who  committed  murder  in  a  sudden  fit  of  anger. 
You  will  agree  that  he  was  not  ideally  fitted  to  be- 
come an  heroic,  eloquent  and  holy  leader  of  men 
and  minister  of  God.  Yet  that  is  what  he  did  be- 
come, for  the  young  man  was  Moses.  There  was  a 
young  man  who  from  early  childhood  showed  in- 
herent traits  of  shrewd  selfishness  and  unscrupulous 
cunning.  We  have  the  record  of  at  least  two  de- 
liberate transactions  in  his  young  manhood  which 
were  compounded  of  cruelty,  cheating  and  lying. 


The  Call  to  the  Ministry  77 

Yet  he  became  one  of  the  greatest  leaders  —  in  char- 
acter and  power  —  of  a  great  race  in  one  of  its 
greatest  periods  —  for  he  was  Jacob.  A  '  man  of 
blood '  and  a  fugitive  from  the  laws  and  from  the 
society  of  his  day  became  David,  the  sweet  psalmist 
of  Israel  and  the  beloved  king  of  his  people.  Saul, 
the  proud  Pharisee  and  bitter  persecutor  of  the  little 
flock  of  early  disciples,  became  Paul,  the  despised 
and  persecuted  but  consecrated  and  powerful  apostle 
of  the  little  band  of  Christians,  next  to  his  Master 
the  greatest  personal  force  in  making  Christianity 
the  conquering  religion  of  the  world.  With  the  im- 
petuous nature  of  the  boy  and  the  mercurial  tempera- 
ment of  the  Celt  the  man  who  in  dejection  denied  his 
captive  Lord  with  an  oath  became  the  man  who 
wrought  a  new  life  into  his  old  and  won  at  last  com- 
plete mastery  over  self.  The  first  bold  skeptic,  who 
openly  doubted  the  crowning  fact  of  the  Savior's 
life,  became  the  Thomas  from  whose  lips  rang  the 
cry  ^  My  Lord  and  my  God ! '  l^ov  are  the  records 
of  such  growth,  such  change,  such  developing  nobility 
confined  to  the  history  of  the  Old  and  'New  Testa- 
ments. I  could  give  you  instance  after  instance  in 
our  own  age,  from  the  apparently  ordinary  business 
clerk  who  became  a  world  influence  —  Dwight  L. 
Moody  —  to  the  sensitive,  self-conscious  college  stu- 
dent whom  professors  sought  to  dissuade  from  the 
ministry  on  the  ground  of  his  temperament  and  his 
impediment  in  speech,  whom  humanity  loves  and 


78  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

honors  as  the  great-hearted  and  golden-tongned 
Phillips  Brooks.  The  same  principle  is  seen  at  work 
all  through  the  rank  and  file  of  the  ministry,  among 
the  lowly  and  among  the  exalted,  this  principle  of 
the  ^  little  leaven  that  leavens  the  whole/  transform- 
ing character,  conquering  weakness,  increasing  tal- 
ents, mastering  motives  and  inspiring  lives.  Don't 
forget  a  tremendously  important  factor  and  prev- 
alent fact,  namely,  the  no  less  than  amazing  power 
of  a  calling  over  a  life.  Do  you  really  aspire  to  do 
the  best  you  are  capable  of?  Are  you  willing  to 
undertake  that  preparation  and  seek  that  consecra- 
tion which  will  make  your  life  count  for  most? 
That  is  the  main  question,  is  it  not  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  suppose  so;  hut  after  all  a  good  layman  s 
life  counts  for  a  great  deal.  I  can  lead  a  life  of  un- 
selfish service  and  influence  outside  of  the  minis- 
try/' 

"Undoubtedly  you  can.  The  question  is.  Will 
you?  What  are  the  probabilities,  considering  on 
the  one  hand  your  tendencies  and  temperament  and 
on  the  other  the  engrossing,  demoralizing  and  dis- 
tracting conditions  which  you  will  be  in  the  midst 
of?  Granted  that  you  will  be  strong  and  do  good, 
will  you  be  as  strong  and  do  as  much  good  when 
two-thirds  of  your  time  will  be  demanded  by  your 
business  or  profession  and  a  considerable  part  of  the 
other  third  will  be  taken  up  in  planning  your  work 
or  in  rest  from  it  ?     Or  even  if  you  do  accomplish 


The  Call  to  the  Ministry  79 

much  for  yourself  and  others  in  the  higher  and  bet- 
ter things,  remember  the  truism  that  ^  higher  and 
better  are  often  the  worst  foes  of  the  highest  and 
best.'  Will  you,  then,  make  deliberate  choice  of  a 
middle-ground  life  ?  Will  you  refuse  to  your  powers 
the  highest  they  are  capable  of  ?  " 

''  Bwp^ose  I  grant  all  this.  I  must  yet  he  honest 
and  say  that  I  cant  subscribe  to  the  doctrines  of  the 
Church" 

"How  do  you  know  you  can't?  Do  you  know 
what  they  are?  Can  you  give  me  an  authorized 
statement  of  what  they  are?  It  is  quite  likely  that 
you,  as  others  around  you,  cannot  subscribe  to  your 
hasty,  superficial  and  altogether  inaccurate  concep- 
tion of  these  doctrines  or  to  the  doctrines  of  certain 
denominations  and  individuals.  You  may  find  your- 
self very  much  in  the  position  of  one  of  the  most 
gifted  authors  and  literary  critics  of  the  day.  He 
was  trained  in  the  schools  of  the  great  philosophers. 
After  sitting  long  at  their  feet,  he  wrote  his  original 
thesis.  The  conclusion  he  reached  is  set  forth  and 
defended  in  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of  modern 
books.     Here  is  one  quotation: 

" '  I  did,  like  all  other  solemn  little  boys,  try  to 
be  in  advance  of  the  age.  Like  them  I  tried  to  be 
some  ten  minutes  in  advance  of  the  truth.  And  I 
found  that  I  was  eighteen  hundred  years  behind  it. 
When  I  fancied  that  I  stood  alone  I  was  really  in 
the  ridiculous  position  of  being  backed  up  by  all 


80  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

Christendom.  It  may  be,  heaven  forgive  me,  that  I 
did  try  to  be  original;  but  I  only  succeeded  in  in- 
venting all  by  myself  an  inferior  copy  of  the  ex- 
isting traditions  of  civilized  religion.  These  essays 
are  concerned  only  to  discuss  the  actual  fact  that  the 
central  Christian  theology  (sufficiently  summarized 
in  the  Apostles'  Creed)  is  the  best  root  of  energy  and 
sound  ethics.'  ■■■ 

"  Further,  I  would  suggest  that  you  ask  yourself  if 
you  know  now  that  you  can  subscribe  to  the  tenets 
of  the  business  or  profession  you  intend  to  make  a 
life  work  —  do  you  even  know  what  they  are  ? 
Can't  you  see  both  the  inconsistency  and  the  unfair- 
ness of  your  attitude  toward  the  very  few,  the  ele- 
mental and  fundamental  teachings  of  the  creed  of 
the  Church?" 

Here  ends  the  dialogue.  After  getting  into  it  I 
was  reminded  of  one  or  two  contentions  of  other 
students  which  I  have  given  as  expressed  in  conver- 
sation. I  have  also  tried  to  convey  more  clearly  and 
fully  than  I  actually  did  at  the  time  the  answers,  as 
I  see  them,  to  these  contentions.  I  would  now  place 
before  young  men  a  few  of  the  positive  claims  of 
the  Christian  ministry  which  I  think  valid  and  capa- 
ble of  being  substantiated.  I  do  not  hold  that  these 
claims  are  made  good  by  all  Christian  bodies  or  by 
the  average  type  of  clergyman.  I  shall  say  nothing 
for  mere  effect  nor  omit  anything  for  fear  of  its 

1  Chesterton  in  "  Orthodoxy," 


The  Call  to  the  Ministry  81 

effect  but  speak  solely  from  convictions  that  have 
been  wrought  into  my  life  through  the  studies  and 
experiences  which  have  been  my  lot  as  a  minister. 

As  it  seems  to  the  writer,  the  Christian  ministry 
offers  to  the  young  man  a  life  of  the  highest  and  most 
serviceable  ideals,  the  purest  and  most  unselfish 
tasks,  the  strongest  and  most  effective  safeguards,  the 
surest  and  best  development  of  the  whole  man,  the 
freest  and  happiest  avenues  of  activity,  the  most  es- 
sential and  most  permanent  aspects  of  truth,  the 
clearest  and  most  far-reaching  conception  of  duty, 
the  most  harmonious  and  satisfying  relation  to  the 
universe,  the  most  creative  and  least  slavish  use  of 
the  faculties.  The  Christian  ministry  offers  the 
most  substantial  optimism  and  the  most  abiding  joy 
of  living,  the  busiest  and  yet  the  happiest,  the  most 
burden-filled  and  least  burdensome,  the  most  inten- 
sive and  yet  the  most  extensive  life.  The  Christian 
ministry  contains  inherently  the  fewest  limitations 
and  the  strongest  inspiration  in  meeting  the  funda- 
mental needs  and  hopes  of  humanity  and  the  eternal 
purposes  of  God.  The  Christian  ministry  offers 
the  daily  companionship  of  the  noblest  character 
of  the  world,  the  unobtrusive  but  ever  constant, 
the  stimulating  and  ennobling  friendship  of  the 
Christ. 

Even  the  barest  and  least  argumentative  defense 
of  tliese  claims  would  require  space  far  beyond  the 
limits  of  this  little  volume.     Let  us  take  but  one, 


82  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

selecting  the  one  most  likely  to  be  doubted,  the  claim 
that  the  ministry  offers  the  broadest  life.  I  would 
make  this  claim  rest  on  some  such  outline  of  defense 
as  this: 

(1)  It  is  broad  in  that  it  calls  into  play  the  largest 
number  of  the  most  varied  talents  of  the  man.  (2) 
It  furnishes  an  outlet  for  these  talents  in  the  broad- 
est and  most  diverse  realms,  such  as  those  of  student, 
teacher,  organizer,  friend,  worshiper,  sympathizer 
and  leader.  (3)  The  world  permits  the  widest  fields 
of  service  to  the  minister  —  in  addition  to  his  serv- 
ices to  humanity  in  the  capacities  above  mentioned. 
More  and  more  in  our  most  progressive  cities  clergy- 
men are  being  found  leading  movements  and  direct- 
ing organizations  where  society  and  government  and 
individuals  are  being  led  to  "  render  unto  Caesar  the 
things  that  are  Caesar's"  as  well  as  unto  God  the 
things  that  are  God's.  (4)  The  Christian  ministry 
is  the  broadest  life  in  that  it  deals  with  the  elemental 
and  fundamental  in  men,  not  solely  with  their  dis- 
eases and  their  crimes  but  with  their  doubts  and 
hopes  and  needs  and  powers  and  joys  and  faith. 
(5)  It  also  deals  with  the  big  and  the  elemental  in 
the  realm  of  principles  and  of  thought  —  with  honor, 
virtue,  truth,  courage,  faith,  love,  the  immortal  and 
the  divine.  (6)  It  is  broad  even  in  its  dealing 
with  the  single,  individual  man  in  that  it  includes  his 
feelings  as  well  as  his  faculties,  his  spiritual  as  well 
as  his  material  welfare.     (7)  It  is  limited  to  no  one 


The  Call  to  the  Ministry  88 

class  of  people  and  to  no  one  line  of  research.     All 
life  is  its  study  and  all  humanity  its  field. 

Finally,  I  put  the  call  of  the  ministry  to  the  young 
man  of  to-day  as  the  supreme  call  of  the  age  —  of  this 
age.  It  is  the  call  of  the  Christ  of  to-day,  more  uni- 
versally needed  by  humanity,  more  hopefully  issued 
by  leading  men  in  more  spheres  of  life  than  ever  in 
any  other  age  of  the  history  of  the  world.  Never 
before  has  the  world  seemed  so  like  one  huge,  living, 
moving  universal  need.  Every  detail  of  this  picture 
could  be  filled  in,  from  the  hour  when  the  rugged 
Anglo-Saxon  poet  sent  a  reveling  nation  to  its  knees 
with  the  prayer,  "  Lord  God  of  hosts,  be  with  us  yet," 
to  the  final  word  in  his  "  religion  of  the  future,"  by 
the  cultured  Unitarian  ex-president  of  Harvard, 
when  he  draws  his  prophecy  to  a  close  with  these 
words :  "  Finally,  this  twentieth  century  religion  is 
not  only  to  be  in  harmony  with  the  great  secular 
movements  of  modern  society,  but  also  in  essential 
agreement  with  the  direct,  personal  teachings  of 
Jesus,  as  they  are  reported  in  the  Gospels.  The 
revelation  he  gave  to  mankind  thus  becomes  more 
wonderful  than  ever."  If  you  doubt  this  last  claim, 
study,  if  you  will,  all  the  really  big  modern  move- 
ments and  read  some  of  the  big  modern  writings  of 
the  real  leaders  of  the  thought  and  life  of  your  day. 
Take  but  one  of  the  unlimited  number  of  tributes  to 
the  power  of  the  most  far-reaching  form  of  the  min- 
istry —  the  missionary.     Let  that  tribute  be  from  the 


84  The  Church  and  the  Crowd 

forerunner  and  founder  of  a  great  school  of  thought 
which  some  of  its  provincial  pupils  hold  to  be  a  sub- 
stitute for  the  creed  of  the  Christian  Church.  This 
is  Darwin's  testimony :  "  The  lesson  of  the  mission- 
ary is  the  magician's  wand.  The  success  of  the  mis- 
sion is  most  wonderful  and  charms  me,  as  I  always 
prophesied  utter  failure." 

Hear  the  verdict  of  one  of  the  brainiest  and  busiest 
of  Christian  leaders  in  the  midst  of  perhaps  the  most 
complex  and  difficult  conditions  of  America  to-day, 
as  he  speaks  to  us  through  those  who  have  come 
together  under  his  leadership : 

"  We  come  here  to  speak  a  positive,  victorious  note 
as  far  as  we  are  concerned,  that  the  faith  for  which 
Christ  stands  in  this  world  is  not  a  receding,  but  an 
advancing  faith,  not  a  losing,  but  a  coming  faith, 
making  and  weaving  its  way  among  the  peoples  of 
the  earth  to  the  complete  and  sure  and  final  victory. 
Christianity  has  not  served  the  world  as  much  as  it 
will.  The  person  of  Christ  is  the  most  powerful 
single  factor  in  the  world  to-day,  but  it  will  become 
more  powerful  as  the  years  pass.  The  whole  world 
is  to  be  won." 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


BIBLE  STUDY  AND  DEVOTIONAL 


A.  T.  ROBERTSON,  M.A.,  P.P. 

PauPs  Joy  in  Christ 

Studies  in  Philippians.    l2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.25. 

A  study  of  Paul's  unfailing  optimism  and  spirit  of  rejoicing. 
Prof  Robertson  brings  all  his  expository  skill  to  the  presen- 
tation of  this  fact.  The  result  is  a  new  evidence  of  the 
value  which  may  be  set  on  the  work  of  this  accomphshed 
New  Testament  scholar, 

JAMES  K  PUNHAM  ^^^:/s2'J!fs%'ii'aZ^^^^^ 

John  Fourteen 

The  Greatest  Chapter  of  the  Greatest  Book.    Net  $1.50. 

"Will  be  welcomed  everywhere  by  earnest  students  of  the 
Bible.  On  every  page  is  revealed  the  keen  discriminating 
mind  of  a  scholar,  who  ever  exalts  Christ  and  magnifies  the 
Word  of  God  above  every  other  message.' — Baptist  ittandard, 

WILLIAM  HIRAM  FOULKES,  P.P. 

Sunset  by  the  Lakeside 

Vesper  Messages  to  Young  People.  Boards,  net  60c. 

Under  this  general  title,  a  number  of  devotional  messages 
«uch  as  are  eminently  suited  to  Young  People  s  Conferences, 
are  brought  together  in  attractive  and  useful  form.  Into  these 
brief  addresses.  Dr.  Foulkes  introduces  some  really  choice, 
reverential  thoughts  such  as  cannot  fail  of  proving  helpful  to 
everybody  into  whose  hands  they  come. 

YOUNG  FOLKS'  BIBLE  STORIES 


LETTICE   BELL  Author  of"  Go-to-Bed  Stories,"  etc, 

Bible  Battles 

Israel's  Victories  Retold  for  Young  Folks.  i2mo, 
cloth,  net  $1.25. 

Commencing  with  the  victories  of  Joshua,  a  stirring  pano- 
rama of  Old  Testament  battle  scenes  is  here  presented,  ibe 
narratives  are  all  simply  and  effectively  told  in  language  pe- 
culiarly suited  to  juvenile  readers, 

APA  R.  HABERSHON 

Hidden  Pictures 

Or,'How^he  New  Testament  is  Concealed  in  the 
Old  Testament    i2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.25. 

In  a  series  of  delightfully-drawn  pictures.  Miss  Habershon 
presents  some  of  the  most  arresting  and  salient  incidents  in 
the  h'" story  of  ancient  Israel.  These  she  employs  to  show  how 
wonderfully  they  foreshadow  and  pre-figure  the  coming  of  Im- 
manuel,  as  related  in  the  Gospels. 


PULPIT  AND  PEW 


PROF.    WILLIAM  J.   HUTCH  INS     The  Oberlin  Graduate 
"  School  of  Theology 

The  Preacher's  Ideals  and  Inspirations 

George  Shepherd  Foundation  Lectures.    Net  $i.oo. 

"Professor  Hutchins'  work  with  his  students,  out  of  which 
these  lectures  have  grown,  has  been  so>  stimulating  and  en- 
lightening, that  I  rejoice  that  the  fruit  of  his  long  thinking: 
on  the  Preacher's  problem  is  to  be  made  available  to  others 
also." — Pres.  Henry  Churchill  King,  of  Oberlin. 

ELIJAH  P.  BROWN  C  Ram's  Horn)         Author  of  "The 
. ; Real  Billy  Sunday" 

Point  and  Purpose  in  Preaching 

i2mo,  cloth,  net  $i.oo. 

*'Dr.    Brown  is   perhaps  best   known   as   the   Ram's  Horn 
Man,  having  been  for  a  long  while  editor  of  The  Ham's  Horn 
which  under  his  administration  was  a  power  for  good.     Good 
reading  for  us  all,  but  it  is  of  special  value  to  ministers." 
— Herald  of  Gospel  Liberty, 

ALBERT  F.  McGARRAH  ..  Author  or 

-  "Modem  Church  Finance^* 

Modem  Church  Management 

i2nio,  cloth,  net  $i.oo. 

With  thoroughness  and  constructive  ability,  Mr.  McGar- 
rah  furnishes  valuable  advice  concerning  the  ideals  and  poli- 
cies of  the  modern  church  and  what  she  may  learn  and  profit 
by,  from  a  study  of  the  principles  of  scientific  management. 

JOHN  F.  COWAN,   P.P. 

Big  Jobs  for  Little  Churches 

i2mo,  cloth,  net  75c. 

Deals^  with  the  manifold  problems  confronting  the  rural 
church  in  an  optimistic,  constructive  sort  of  way.  Furnishes 
helpful,  suggestive  plans  of  work  and  methods  of  procedure 
which  have  been  found  to  yield  highly  satisfactory  results. 

JOSEPH  FORT  NEWTON       Pastor  City  Temple,  London 

An  Ambassador 

City  Temple  Sermons.    i2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.00. 

"Most  of  the  sermons  were  preached  by  Dr.  Newton  in  the 
City  Temple,  London.  Dr.  Newton  has  both  vigor  of 
thought  and  an  unusual  felicity  of  expression.  And  it  is 
good,  earnest  gospel  preaching  as  well." — Christian  Guardian, 

HUGH  THOMPSON  KERR,   P.P. 

The  Highway  of  Life 

i2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.00. 

Dr.  Kerr  has  long  established  himself  as  a  man  with  a 
message.  Some  of  his  fine  pulpit  efforts  are  here  presented, 
furnishing  ample  evidence  that  this  talented  preacher  haa 
something  to  ,say  of  an  enheartening  character. 


THE  LIFE  OF  CHRIST 


P,  fTHITfTELL  WILSON    of  the  London  Daily  N*ws 

The  Chri^  We  Forget 

A  lyife  of  Our  Lord  for  Men  of  To-day.  8vo, 
cloth,  net  $1.50. 

A  book  with  scarcely  a  i>eer  in  contemporary  publishing. 
The  author,  an  English  University  man,  brilliant  journalist, 
and  sometime  member  of  Parliament,  writes  the  story  of  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  in  a  wonderfully  arresting  fashion.  His  book  is 
utterly  free  from  theological  terminology  or  conventional  view- 
point presenting  a  picture  of  Jesua  which  while  actually  new 
IS  astonishingly  convincing. 

EDGA R  YO UNG  MULLINS,  P.P.  Pres. Southern  Baptist 

'     •  Theo'lSem.,LouisviiIe 

The  Life  in  Christ    Net  $1.25. 

"Dr.  Mullins  has  recognition  throughout  the  country  ,as  a 
great  teacher.  _  This  volume  shows  him  a  preacher  of  intel- 
lectual and  spiritual  power.  Excellent  mooels  for  the  grrow- 
ing  minister,  forcible,  intellectual,  spiritxial." — Christian  Advo- 
cate. 

FRANCIS  E.   CLARK,  P.  P.  President  United  Society 

~"-"~"^~-"-^— — — — """"^  Christian  Endeavor 

Christ  and  the  Young  People 

i2mo,  cloth,  net  soc. 

*'A  study  of  the  Life  of  Jesus  in  a  quite  unusual  vein. 
The  editor  has  seldom  during  his  life  been  so  helped  by 
the  printed  page.  It  is  indeed  a  remarkable  presentation  of 
the  life  of  Jesus,  sincere  and  impartial." — Zton's  Herald. 

JAMES  M.  GRAY,  P.P.  Dean  Moody  Bible  Institute 

A  Picture  of  the  Resurrection 

i2mo,  boards,  net  35c. 

A  plain,  unadorned^  examination  of  the  historical  fact  of 
Our  Lord  s  Resurrection,  of  its  indispensable  prominence  in 
the  faith  of  the  Christian  and  of  the  power  its  acceptance 
exercises  in  buttressing  his  belief  in  a  physical  resurrectioa 
from  the  dead,  and  the  attainment  of  life  eternal. 

A.  T,  ROBERTSON,  M.A.,  P.P. 

The  Divinity  of  Chri^  in  the  Gospel 

of  Jolin        i2mo,  cloth,  net  $i.oo. 

**A  fascinating  study  of  the  Gospel  of  John.  The  book  »• 
not  a  full  commentary  on  the  Gospel,  but  an  effort  to  de- 
velop the  thesis  of  the  book  with  brevity  and  clearness,  so 
that  the  average  man  may  understand  the  book  bettor  as  A 
whole  in  detail."— C/»mt»an  Observer, 


FICTION,  JUVENILE,  ETC. 


J.  J.    BELL  Author  of  "  Wee  Macsretror'* 

Cupid  in  Oilskins 

i2mo,  cloth,  net  $i.oo. 

"Much  of  the  charm  of  *Wee  Macgreegor'  and  *Oh! 
Christina'  is  found  in  this  satisfying  story  of  love  and  war. 
'Charlie'  is  a  gunner  on  a  British  patrol  boat  who  is  inspired 
to  attempt  the  sinking  of  an  enemy  submarine  partly  from 
devotion  to  a  lass  admired  by  many  a  lovelorn  sailor.  There 
is  fun  in  the  story  with  patriotism  and  a  high  sense  of  honor 
and  withal  a  tenderness  for  which  Bell's  heroes  and  herO" 
ines  are  noted." — The  Continent, 


PROF.  EDWARD  A.  STEINER  Author  of"  The  Immi- 

•^———^-^——————^^^——  grant  Tide" etc. 

My  Doctor  Dog 

l6mo,  boards,  net  50c. 

A  famous  author  in  a  new  vein.  Taking  for  a  theme  his 
possession  when  a  boy  of  a  little  fox-terrier.  Prof.  Steiner 
furnishes  some  altogether  delightful  pictures  of  the  land  of 
his  childhood,  and  of  the  quaint  manners  and  customs  obtain- 
ing in  the  land  of  the  Carpathians.  The  story  is  given  an 
American  application  sequel,  in  which  all  Prof.  Steiner's  rich 
endowment  as  a  powerful  and  sympathetic  writer  finds  full  play. 

A.    FREDERICK  COLLINS 

The  Magic  of  Science 

Profusely  Illustrated.     i2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.25. 

Time  will  never  hang  heavily  on  the  hands  of  the  boy  who 
owns  this  book.  It  is  a  work  that  will  appeal  to  everjr  boy 
or  girl  from  nine  to  ninety.  Its  pages  open  up  a  practically 
unending  vista  of  entertainment,  which  is  as  much  valuable 
knowledge  as  it  is  diversion  and  amusement.  Nearly  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty   sketches  illustrate  the   text. 

FLORENCE   PELTIER 

Through  the  Rainbow 

A  Fairy  Story.  With  Illustrations  in  color  by 
Clara  P.  Wilson,  and  in  black  and  white  by  Jewel  L. 
Morrison.     Small  quarto,  cloth,  net  $1.00. 

In  some  respects  the  reader  is  reminded  of  "Alice  in  Won- 
derland"; in  others,  met  only  by  new,  original  fancies.  A 
book  of  sheer,  unalloyed  delight.  To  a  captivating  story  told 
in  the  freshest,  most  charming  sort  of  way,  an  added  wealth 
of  illustrations,  done  both  in  color  and  black-and-white,  com* 
plete  a  "straight  cut"  to  the  heart  of  a  child. 


INSPIRATION  FOR  MEN 


ROBERT  fF.  BOLffELL 

After  College— What? 

i2mo,  cloth,  net  75c. 

A  protest,  in  the  form  of  autobiographical  chapters,  against 
dawdling  through  college.  The  author  is  sprightly  and  read- 
able,— anything  but  preachy — but  does  put  some  very  whole- 
some and  helpful  facts  in  such   form  as  to  grip  the  reade*. 

HALFORD  E.  LUC  COCK 

Five-Minute  Shop-Talks 

i2mo,  cloth,  net  ^i.oo. 

One  of  the  best  things  of  its  kind  yet  issued.  In  eack 
of  these  thirty  or  more  brief  addresses,  Mr.  Luccock  en> 
ploys  terse,  epigrammatic  language  and  contrives  to  compresa 
mto  a  five-minute  talk  the  wisdom  and  counsel  of  a  fifty- 
minute  sermon.  Every  word  is  made  to  tell— to  tell  some- 
thing  worth    hearing    and   heeding. 

CHARLES  CARROLL  ALBERTSON 

Chapel  Talks 

A  Collection  of  Sermons  to  College  Students. 
i2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.00. 

Practical  discourses  on  essential  subjects  delivered  in  vari- 
ous colleges  and  universities,  including  Columbia,  Cornell, 
Dartmouth,  Princeton,  Yale,  and  Virginia.  No  one  of  these 
sf-rmons  required  more  than  twenty-five  minutes  to  deliver. 
They  are  characterized  by  earnest  argument,  familiar  illus- 
trations and    forceful   appeal. 

CORTLANDT    MYERS,     D.  D.  Auth,r  »/ *' R*al  Pray,r» 
^ *'Th*Real  Holy  Spirit."  tU, 

The  Man  Inside 

A  Study  of  One's  Self.  By  Minister  at  Tremont 
Temple,  Boston.    i2mo,  cloth,  net  50c. 

A  four-fold  study  of  the  inner  life  of  a  man,  in  which  the 
popular  pastor  of  Tremont  Temple,  discusses  the  forces  that 
make  him,  lift  him,  save  him,  and  move  him.  The  book  is 
prepared  in  bright,  interesting  fashion,  and  abundantly  fur- 
nished with  suitable  and  forceful  illustration. 

JOHN  T.  PARIS  PoPular-Price  Editions 

The  **Succes8  Books" 

Three  Vols,  each,  formerly  $1.25  net.    Now  each 
60c  net  (postage  extra). 
Seeking  Success 
Men  Who  Made  Good 
Making  Good 

Dr.  J.  R.  Miller  says:  "Bright  and  short  and  full  of  illus- 
trations from  actual  life,  they  are  just  the  sort  that  will  help 
yonng  men  in  the  home  in  school  among  associates  and  in 
business."  ^ 


Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Libraries 


1    1012  01235  2441 


Date  Due 


SSm:?- 

i 

§> 

PRINTED 

IN  U.  S.  A. 

